Medium's Worst Problem Isn't Pay - It's Broken Trust

Here's how it gets fixed

You're probably not very happy if you've been writing on Medium for a while.

Many people are seeing their earnings fall by half, accounts are getting suspended by mistake, and AI-generated articles are still running rampant. People are leaving, and it's easy to understand why. For many people, it's simply no longer worth the time.

But that's not the worst part - at least not to me.

The worst part is that Medium hasn't been transparent about its problems or what it's doing to fix them. It has lost the trust of the people who have made the platform special. I admit, after a year of writing, I've even started to lose my desire to post articles to Medium.

Then, to add salt to the wound, there was the infamous Medium job posting, which was only recently taken down.

If you didn't see it, here's a snippet:

This is a fully remote position and you can be based anywhere within the U.S. The compensation range for this position is between $225k-$260k per year base salary + equity and benefits.

It goes on...

Comprehensive health insurance, 401(k) plans, parental leave, and unlimited paid time off are just the start. Our values show up in your benefits: We provide coverage and support for your gym membership, education and professional development, career coaching, financial advising, mental health support, and more.

To put that in perspective, in 2023, the average American household only made $80,610.

For the writers who are giving their all to writing for Medium and making pennies for it, who also hear Medium talk about their financial woes, this is a slap in the face.

Okay, enough of the bad news.

I think the people who work for Medium want the platform to succeed; they are just struggling with how to do that. In a world where every scammer with a computer can generate an AI article and make money from it, finding a way to survive is going to be a monumental challenge.

While Medium has to fix that internally, the writers currently only need the Medium team to repair the lost trust.

The remote job posting that pays over $200k has been either filled or taken down - that's a good start. Returning to a "pay for read time" method instead of rewarding engagement would also help. Making Medium function more like Twitter was a mistake.

They could even offer an apology (gasp).

They say a good apology has three parts: an acknowledgment, the apology itself, and a follow-through on fixing the problem. A good apology won't fix all of Medium's issues, but it would go a long way toward restoring trust in the community.

I'd like to see something like this from Medium:

We realize writers' earnings have been cut, and many real accounts have been suspended by mistake. Not only that, but we haven't been transparent about these issues. We fell short, and we're sorry for that. We're working hard to restore the accounts suspended by mistake and get earnings back to normal. We'll get there. In the meantime, we'll begin to push out regular updates on what we're doing to address these issues.

While I don't think we'll get that, I can tell you what I plan to do with Medium.

I’m angry with Medium, but I'm not leaving. I will keep writing and trust that the team will fix the problems we're all noticing. I don't know if they'll succeed, but if we abandon the platform in mass, they most certainly won't.

Medium curators believed in me as a new writer.

They boosted many of my articles and gave me an audience I likely didn't deserve. Medium is the only reason I stuck with writing. Now, when the chips are down, and Medium is struggling, I choose to believe in them.