Why Are You So Pi***d Off About Not Getting The Medium Bonus?

Did you write better or just more last month?

The questions circulating on Medium Facebook groups and many articles I’ve read here in the last week have been:

“I’ve got everything crossed I get a Medium bonus this month.”

Or words to that effect. And since the turn of the month:

“So who got the Medium bonus?”

And:

“I can’t believe it, I only wrote two pieces this month and got $500.”

Again, there are plenty of variations on this.

So, here’s my question and observation. Why are so many writers pinning everything on this and then getting irate if they didn’t receive it?

I’ll tell you at the end of this article whether I’ve joined the exclusive “Medium bonus club”.

The realities of incentives and rewards

As a Medium newbie, it’s been interesting watching the avalanche of posts on the bonus programme. If for no other reason, the team at Medium have made a lot of writers focus on their work since introducing this additional incentive to create great content.

I signed up at the start of May and it took a few weeks before I was even aware of the bonus phenomenon as more and more posts on the subject filled my news feed. Hand on heart, I can say this wasn’t a motivation for joining Medium as I didn’t know about it. That said, I’d be lying if I said the thought of earning a little extra from my articles didn’t cross my mind.

But let’s think about the numbers for a moment.

Medium doesn’t disclose details of the number of subscribers or active writers on the platform. At least, not that I’ve seen so far. But a little Googling reveals some educated estimates and figures to contemplate.

A 2019 post on the official Medium blog notes that since 2017:

“We’ve paid more than $6 million to over 30,000 writers, increasing payouts year over year.”

Add to this the assessment of Medium heavyweight Tom Kuegler at the end of 2020 that the platform has more than 200k paying members. Of course, not everyone is writing content, and of those that are, not everyone will be a regular contributor. But this gives us a ballpark to play in.

Let’s be conservative between these two figures and say there are 100k active writers who could be eligible for the bonus scheme. Then factor in what we know about its distribution.

Top 1,000: $500 bonus 1,001–1,500: $100 bonus 1,501–2,000: $50 bonus

If the assumptions above are anywhere near accurate 2,000 writers out of 100k will get a bonus. Or viewed another way:

2% of writers will get the monthly reward.

This is the lure and curse of incentive and reward schemes. I’m not knocking it or “biting the hand that feeds me”. Motivation and targets to aim at are vital in achieving anything in life. I’m just saying, sometimes we need to manage our own expectations with a dose of reality.

Comparing the odds

With this 2% or 1 in 50 chance of being rewarded in mind, here are some comparative thoughts from “The Book of Odds” that paint a different picture on the idea of incentives and our chances of winning.

• 1 in 3.6 — the odds an adult uses the Internet before going to bed
• 1 in 12.5 — the odds an e-mail will contain pornography
• 1 in 25 — the odds an adult is a vegetarian or vegan
• 1 in 33.3 — the odds a bride will intend to sign a prenup
• 1 in 50 — the odds a person will meet the requirements for Mensa

So, our chances of getting the bonus are the same as getting into Mensa. The phrase “the house always wins” springs to mind.

Incentive Theory

We might not always identify it by name but “incentive theory” and the promise of a reward is always present somewhere in our lives. It boils down to a simple equation:

IF if do this THEN I can have that.

We’ve all seen it in action:

• If I work out for 30 minutes, then I can have that cake.
• If I don’t buy a takeaway every week, then I’ll have more money for the gadget I want.
• If I stay late at work all week, then I can leave early on Friday.
• If you do your homework straight after school, then you can play on your X box (I know this one from personal experience!).

An incentive encourages you to work that bit harder and motivates you with an end reward in mind.

We see it in the workplace too. Do you think the average salesperson endures the wrath of grumpy customers they have to cold call or dismissive customers in the street who aren’t interested in their “amazing deal” for broadband, without an incentive in mind? If they sell and meet their targets, or are the best performer that month, a bonus may appear in their pay packet.

What is most powerful is when the potential recipient of the incentive places value on it. At that point, your motivation is sky high — and as writers on Medium, how many of you found that extra energy with the prospect of adding a bonus to your end of month earnings? Quite a few, I imagine.

There’s always a catch

With the end of the month drawing close, the tone of messages I was reading on social media changed and the reality of how this incentive was affecting writers dawned on me. I lost count of the number of comments that went a little like this:

“I’d better get a bonus this month. I’ve been working my ass off to knock out 50 articles.”

How many of us chasing the dream of being in the exclusive “top 2000 club” were sacrificing quality over quantity? Maybe you were, maybe you weren’t. It’s a very subjective question, but my worry is in chasing this status is the sacrifice you had to make? That, and putting yourself under greater pressure, getting less sleep, neglecting other activities or people and raising your personal anxiety.

Did you end up feeling better at the end of the month, particularly if you didn’t achieve the bonus?

I looked at my own stats for the preceding two months because when writing in May I wasn’t aware of the bonus opportunity, whereas in June I was.

• May — 17 articles and 978 views
• June — 12 articles and 2274 views

How do your numbers stack up?

It wasn’t a conscious decision to write less in June. Life gets in the way sometimes, and I didn’t have the bonus in mind as being a newcomer I had no expectation of getting one. I also realise that views stand more chance of rising when your archive of stories grows and I’ve been more active sharing links on relevant Facebook groups, so it’s not a like-for-like comparison.

The point though is as writers here we risk putting “quantity” of articles over “quality” of our output. I’m not opposed to the bonus scheme or whatever follows from August, far from it. But we owe it to ourselves to stick to the original motivation for joining — writing damn good articles!

Am I now in the “top 2000 club”?

And for those of you who’ve read this far and are wondering — I didn’t get a Medium bonus this month. Am I pissed off? No. I still made 4-times what I did in my first month, which was a pleasant surprise (although I’m not planning my retirement yet!).

Instead, I will continue to write in a way that motivates me rather than to feed the Medium bonus algorithm!

If you enjoyed my article, here are a few more from me that hopefully catch your interest!