Two things Medium needs to do that Vocal does

Summary

The author discusses the disparity between the popularity of their articles on Medium and the income generated from them, advocating for a payment model similar to Vocal's, which compensates writers for all reads regardless of the reader's membership status.

Abstract

The article highlights the author's frustration with Medium's compensation structure, which they feel is unfair given the high readership their articles often receive. Despite several articles surpassing 20,000 reads, the financial return has been minimal, with earnings rarely exceeding $20 unless the reads are from internal Medium members. The author points out that even viral content that significantly increases Medium's exposure and potentially new memberships does not translate into proportional earnings for the writer. In contrast, Vocal's model of paying for every read, coupled with features like built-in tipping, is seen as a more equitable system. The author suggests that adopting similar practices could not only be fairer to writers but also incentivize them to continue producing quality content and driving traffic to the platform.

Opinions

The author believes Medium should compensate writers for all reads, not just those by paying members, as Vocal does.
They highlight the importance of a built-in tipping system, like the one on Vocal, for better user experience and writer compensation.
The author feels that the current payout on Medium is not sufficient to sustain writers or justify the effort required to produce quality content.
There is a sense of dissatisfaction among writers of all levels on Medium due to the low monetary returns, leading to considerations of abandoning the platform.
The author expresses a desire to remain on Medium but is candid about the need for a more favorable readership-to-earnings ratio.

Many of my articles have gone viral, but I’ve only made peanuts on them. I don’t think this is fair.

Screenshot by me of my own stats.

The major draw of Vocal is that you get paid for every reader that comes across your piece regardless of their membership status. I wish Medium would follow suit.

The downside of Vocal is that if you do not have your own mailing list or following outside of Vocal, your writing will go nowhere. They don’t seem to have the audience or distribution and reach that Medium offers. Success on Vocal is heavily dependent on your own social media following and your own mailing lists.

On Vocal, there is also a tipping option built right into the bottom of each article, allowing readers to send the writer a couple of bucks easily without needing to leave the Vocal page. This is good user experience, whereas on Medium, to get a tip, you have to embed an external link yourself to either Patreon or to get Ko-fi, etc.

Several of my Medium articles have surpassed the 20K reads mark, but I’ve only made a couple of bucks off them. Most of the time, I don’t make more than $20 even when the readership is well over five thousand. Majority of my followers are external readers and are not part of Medium; or my articles get shared anonymously by an external reader and it goes viral, driving tens of thousands of readers to Medium.

But I still make peanuts.

Driving traffic to Medium, whether that reader is a member or not, still benefits Medium. Not only does it drive possible conversion to memberships, but it also increases their exposure to a wider audience, so why shouldn’t writers who increase traffic be paid for it?

My most successful story made $1900, but that’s based only on 58K internal views/reads. The story actually went viral on Facebook and had a global reach — all the way to the Philippines, Australia, and Latin America (tracked through Facebook). In total, it had over 247K reads, which if I were paid for every read, would have banked me around $6000.

Screenshots of my stats by me.

Recently, two of my pieces went mini-viral and garnered a few thousand reads each, but since these reads and the spread were external, I only made a couple of bucks. I am not making any money for the external traffic that I am driving to Medium, which is the bulk of the readers.

Screenshots of my stats by me.

How much we’re paid has been a matter of contention for a lot of writers. Beyond distribution complaints, even those of us who have had a modicum of success are looking to abandon ship because we’re just not making enough money to sustain ourselves. The payout isn’t enough of a draw to keep grinding away and to keep creating quality content for a master that just won’t pay.

The last few months, I’ve heard a lot of rumblings from writers big and small about an exodus from Medium because they’re just not happy about the pay. I want to stay here because I do like the platform, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t frustrated about the readership to monetary benefit quotient.