You wrote: “If ever there is an indicator of quality, that’s it.”

Summary

The author argues that success on Medium is influenced by various factors beyond writing quality, including platform features, social media presence, and subject matter, and suggests that metrics like read rate, highlights, and responses are better indicators of writing quality.

Abstract

The text critiques the assumption that financial success on Medium is a direct indicator of content quality. It points out that Medium's curation practices, which favor articles from its own publications, can disproportionately direct attention and earnings towards those pieces. Additionally, authors with large social media followings can garner significant engagement regardless of content quality. The author also notes a disparity in the representation of topics among featured articles, suggesting that subject matter popularity does not equate to writing quality. Furthermore, the text introduces alternative metrics for assessing writing quality, such as read rate, as advocated by published author Linda Caroll, and the number of highlights and responses, which are seen as more meaningful indicators of an article's impact on its readers. The author laments the societal perception that equates financial success with superior quality.

Opinions

The author believes that Medium's feature strategy and the influence of an author's social media following can skew perceptions of writing quality.
There is a view that the prevalence of certain topics in featured articles is not a reflection of the quality of writing but rather of their popularity or the platform's curation policies.
The author suggests that traditional metrics like claps may not accurately represent the quality of writing on Medium.
Linda Caroll's preference for read rate as a key metric is highlighted, indicating a belief that consistent engagement, even on a smaller scale, is a valuable measure of quality.
The author posits that highlights and responses are strong evidence of an article's resonance with readers and should be considered when evaluating writing quality.
The text criticizes the societal notion that financial success is synonymous with high quality, implying that this is a flawed and misleading assumption.

You wrote: “If ever there is an indicator of quality, that’s it.”

I’m sorry, but there is a huge difference between correlation and causation.

There are so many factors that lead to making money on Medium which have nothing to do with the quality of the writing:

If Medium only features articles by the publications it owns, there is a huge amount of attention (hence, eyeballs and ultimately claps) flowing in that direction.
People with huge social media followings are almost guaranteed to have articles in the top 1% of claps, regardless of the article quality. Just do the math: 1% of 30K followers is 300 people. If each one claps 10 times that’s a huge response and pay out.
Subject matter has no correlation to quality of writing. I went through every featured article on Medium during the first three weeks of August. Out of 205 featured articles, on 4 articles were written about one of these topics: Sports, Fiction, Music, Humor and TV.

My research is here, but you’ll have to wade through a lot of satire:

Ways of the Wordsmith: How to Be Happy and Successful Now

2019: A Writer’s Odyssey

medium.com

Finally, there are other metrics that provide a more accurate measure of writing quality.

Linda Caroll, a published author, prefers read rate, even if it only means you are getting 28 reads out of 36 views.

A number of other writers believe that highlights and responses are the strongest evidence that an article has made a strong impression on readers.

It’s unfortunate that our society perpetuates the illusion that something making money is, by definition, superior in quality.