AI was a really big problem a few months ago, and I still come across plenty of those articles. I went from accepting most writers for my publication to rejecting close to 90% every day because they were using AI and it was obvious. A bigger problem with Medium is the lack of distribution. Most writers struggle to gain 10-15 reads for an article.
The lack of transparency in how they’re approaching distribution is what frustrates me. Most of my articles now are getting one hundred reads. Yet a non-boosted one I wrote a few months back received 41k reads. These are similar articles. It tells me they’re not being forthcoming about distribution.
Sometimes, it's almost random if an article will go viral or not. What I hate about distribution is that most articles will last a few hours or maybe a day at best for me before they die off.
I think the idea that pay got dropped because many of the same readers frequently read my work is a problems for Medium.
Why?
Every business I have ever done marketing in succeeds exponentially when you first gather people who like your goods and working with you that they return again and again.
Think of the person who cuts your hair or helps you find your favourite shirts - remembers and calls you when they are on sale. Or renovates your bathroom and then your kitchen and eventually your basement.
You get a connection to writers you enjoy over time as well.
Medium gets stable sure support when authors build subscribers and loyal readers.
One of the thing Medium underplays as a strength for the platform is the loyalty of readers to publications and favourite writers. I don’t know why.
Could not agree more. It's ridiculous that we're being punished for building a consistent community/ readership when that's logically the point of writing there
I appreciate the airtime you’re giving this. I’ve only been on medium a year but have been very discouraged with recent months’ performance in views and payouts.
Having experienced writers like you (and Linda Carroll, who I see also commented here) speak out about this is helpful and lets me know I’m not alone.
I think all of your ideas are wonderful and a great start. Thanks for your time and work on this.
Great suggestions! But I think the first line of rewarding authenticity would be to stop making the Partner Program (compensation for stories) available to any account holder without vetting. Subscribers should be required to do at least one of the following: (1) Earn the author badge, (2) provide access to their body of work on a different platform or reputable publication for review before approval into the Partner Program, (3) write on Medium for a minimum of six months if this is the begining of their writing career, then, they can apply for the Partner Program after 6 months, and approval is subject to review of their work. After people are in, then all the measures you talk about would be great to keep them honest. If you make people earn their Partner Program benefits in this way, I bet it would reduce the AI and spam problems tremendously.
It's a great idea to add my 2 cents in the Medium article! I'm glad you find them useful. Maybe a key M decisionmaker will take note and try out some of these suggestions.
Excellent suggestions, Medium should follow to enhance the writing and retain authentic writers. I love the platform but the latest drop in earnings is very disheartening.
All of this is beyond my comprehension. I write every word and have created every photo in everything published under my name on Medium. My one interaction with AI in life is checking out Udio.com to compose music for a lyric I wrote. It was underwhelming. I wrote a novel called C Square about an AI that becomes emergent as a result of a programming mistake made by its creator.
This is a fantastic list!! I used to go through and block every single author that highlighted just a random word and left a good article comment on my posts. I knew they were costing me. But at some point, there were way more of them than there were real people. I feel like medium ran me off on purpose, and I didn’t even know who to talk to about it. So I haven’t posted there for months. And let me tell ya, save for a few authors I know, the content on medium has REALLY fallen off, competing with space with so much more crap, AI or otherwise, than not crap.
Thank you Julia. You made a point that really adds to peoples frustration, which is that there’s really no one at medium to talk to or troubleshoot problems when they arise.
1. People use AI to boost productivity and become basically a giant word sausage factory producing easily separated links (posts). You could hamper the AI sausage makers by simply constraining the number of daily posts allowed behind the paywall, say to 2 a day, as an example.
2. Medium could also get rid of the idiotic (IMO) ability of non-members being able to post behind the paywall at all. Let non-members post all the free content they want, but writers should ante up something to the payout pot. $5 a month is insanely reasonable. To help non-member writers achieve this they could see #3.
3. Medium could enable an in-house tipping ability for members to financially support other members in whatever amount they choose whenever they choose. I would want this button to have the option for anonymity or I wouldn't use it. Medium could issue a separate 1099 for user tip totals. I would have no problem with Medium taking a percentage of the tip off the top (like 10%) for admin functions.
"I suspect this problem is why Medium says pay isn't down. It's a technicality: the money going in is being paid out to an increasing number of fake accounts, reducing pay for real writers."
I agree with this, Joshua. There are a lot of people putting AI behind the paywall. Random writers, yes, but also trusted writers including publication editors. A big part of the issue is that someone using AI can produce much greater volume than someone not using it. If a person using AI posts 5 articles for every one I create, of course my pay is going to be down.
Critical to the issue of resolution is that Medium is a very small team. I have suggested that they implement a reporting system so that writers can flag AI behind the paywall for them. I also think if they were to say 3 strikes and you're out of the partner program, that would be a pretty effective strategy. Medium doesn't care if people use AI. They just say no AI behind the paywall. Easy solution would be to remove people from the payment program for repeat violation.
Thank you Linda. You make a good point about medium being a small team. What’s interesting is there are so many talented people in medium’s community that would likely help them for free, if they would just be transparent and willing to accept help.
You make a great point, and one I hadn’t thought of. Thank you for this.
AI was a really big problem a few months ago, and I still come across plenty of those articles. I went from accepting most writers for my publication to rejecting close to 90% every day because they were using AI and it was obvious. A bigger problem with Medium is the lack of distribution. Most writers struggle to gain 10-15 reads for an article.
Same here, after a day or two them seem to almost disappear.
The lack of transparency in how they’re approaching distribution is what frustrates me. Most of my articles now are getting one hundred reads. Yet a non-boosted one I wrote a few months back received 41k reads. These are similar articles. It tells me they’re not being forthcoming about distribution.
Sometimes, it's almost random if an article will go viral or not. What I hate about distribution is that most articles will last a few hours or maybe a day at best for me before they die off.
I think the idea that pay got dropped because many of the same readers frequently read my work is a problems for Medium.
Why?
Every business I have ever done marketing in succeeds exponentially when you first gather people who like your goods and working with you that they return again and again.
Think of the person who cuts your hair or helps you find your favourite shirts - remembers and calls you when they are on sale. Or renovates your bathroom and then your kitchen and eventually your basement.
You get a connection to writers you enjoy over time as well.
Medium gets stable sure support when authors build subscribers and loyal readers.
One of the thing Medium underplays as a strength for the platform is the loyalty of readers to publications and favourite writers. I don’t know why.
Could not agree more. It's ridiculous that we're being punished for building a consistent community/ readership when that's logically the point of writing there
I appreciate the airtime you’re giving this. I’ve only been on medium a year but have been very discouraged with recent months’ performance in views and payouts.
Having experienced writers like you (and Linda Carroll, who I see also commented here) speak out about this is helpful and lets me know I’m not alone.
I think all of your ideas are wonderful and a great start. Thanks for your time and work on this.
Thank you Karen. I just hope Medium cares enough to listen to us.
Great suggestions! But I think the first line of rewarding authenticity would be to stop making the Partner Program (compensation for stories) available to any account holder without vetting. Subscribers should be required to do at least one of the following: (1) Earn the author badge, (2) provide access to their body of work on a different platform or reputable publication for review before approval into the Partner Program, (3) write on Medium for a minimum of six months if this is the begining of their writing career, then, they can apply for the Partner Program after 6 months, and approval is subject to review of their work. After people are in, then all the measures you talk about would be great to keep them honest. If you make people earn their Partner Program benefits in this way, I bet it would reduce the AI and spam problems tremendously.
These are good ideas. I’ll add them to the list for the Medium version of this. I appreciate it.
It's a great idea to add my 2 cents in the Medium article! I'm glad you find them useful. Maybe a key M decisionmaker will take note and try out some of these suggestions.
Write Medium off, Joshua. They’ve had more than enough time to right the ship. Maybe a new CEO is needed.
Agreed on the CEO.
Excellent suggestions, Medium should follow to enhance the writing and retain authentic writers. I love the platform but the latest drop in earnings is very disheartening.
Thank you. They certainly need to do something because the current course is driving away talent.
True
Personally, I don’t think Medium would pay any attention to your sensible suggestions. Medium may be beyond repair.
I hope you’re wrong Stephen, but I suspect you’re not.
I believe medium is looking for different readers for different works at different times. Which is not possible.
I believe in your ideas, I support it
I appreciate it Ral 🙏🏻
All of this is beyond my comprehension. I write every word and have created every photo in everything published under my name on Medium. My one interaction with AI in life is checking out Udio.com to compose music for a lyric I wrote. It was underwhelming. I wrote a novel called C Square about an AI that becomes emergent as a result of a programming mistake made by its creator.
I like your suggestions, Joshua! Hopefully Medium Gods will apply some of it! 🙏
Thank you 🙏🏻
I’m not sure if Medium is incentivized to do that at the moment.
This is a fantastic list!! I used to go through and block every single author that highlighted just a random word and left a good article comment on my posts. I knew they were costing me. But at some point, there were way more of them than there were real people. I feel like medium ran me off on purpose, and I didn’t even know who to talk to about it. So I haven’t posted there for months. And let me tell ya, save for a few authors I know, the content on medium has REALLY fallen off, competing with space with so much more crap, AI or otherwise, than not crap.
Thank you Julia. You made a point that really adds to peoples frustration, which is that there’s really no one at medium to talk to or troubleshoot problems when they arise.
I completely understand why you left.
1. People use AI to boost productivity and become basically a giant word sausage factory producing easily separated links (posts). You could hamper the AI sausage makers by simply constraining the number of daily posts allowed behind the paywall, say to 2 a day, as an example.
2. Medium could also get rid of the idiotic (IMO) ability of non-members being able to post behind the paywall at all. Let non-members post all the free content they want, but writers should ante up something to the payout pot. $5 a month is insanely reasonable. To help non-member writers achieve this they could see #3.
3. Medium could enable an in-house tipping ability for members to financially support other members in whatever amount they choose whenever they choose. I would want this button to have the option for anonymity or I wouldn't use it. Medium could issue a separate 1099 for user tip totals. I would have no problem with Medium taking a percentage of the tip off the top (like 10%) for admin functions.
These are great ideas. I’d like to add them to my list for the Medium version of this article.
By all means add them if you like.
"I suspect this problem is why Medium says pay isn't down. It's a technicality: the money going in is being paid out to an increasing number of fake accounts, reducing pay for real writers."
I agree with this, Joshua. There are a lot of people putting AI behind the paywall. Random writers, yes, but also trusted writers including publication editors. A big part of the issue is that someone using AI can produce much greater volume than someone not using it. If a person using AI posts 5 articles for every one I create, of course my pay is going to be down.
Critical to the issue of resolution is that Medium is a very small team. I have suggested that they implement a reporting system so that writers can flag AI behind the paywall for them. I also think if they were to say 3 strikes and you're out of the partner program, that would be a pretty effective strategy. Medium doesn't care if people use AI. They just say no AI behind the paywall. Easy solution would be to remove people from the payment program for repeat violation.
Thank you Linda. You make a good point about medium being a small team. What’s interesting is there are so many talented people in medium’s community that would likely help them for free, if they would just be transparent and willing to accept help.