Why I Hardly Ever Write for Medium Any More
Last year when I did my taxes, my accountant, who has been my accountant for more than a decade, commented about one particular column of my income.
It was Medium.
I had earned quite a bit. Not a ton, mind you, but enough to make one or two mortgage payments. My mortgage is not huge, but it’s a mortgage, so there’s that. At the time, I was publishing at least four or five well-edited pieces a month, and at one point I did a 30-day prompt experiment, so my output was strong. My output was also not trash, the stuff generated by hacks who try to just get word count out there to generate clicks.
Often, I was picked up by Medium’s publications that ensure higher reach and readers, helping generate greater income for me, which was nice.
Then, all of that changed.
Medium pulled their support for publications, leaving them to fend for themselves and making it more difficult to evangelize. They made it a real challenge to generate revenue. The platform became so oversaturated that good content was lumped in with mediocre and poorly edited content. The writing lost its lustre.
Imagine it like this: A beach chair vendor finds a great spot on a Caribbean beach with clean whtie sand and sets up shop. She is making money hand over fist because she has great…