Medium tries to save its writers

The space of internet writing, paid subscriptions, and news distribution has been moving fast in 2020. With Substack on the rise (including multiple big name writers jumping ship for the direct-to-consumer model), Medium realized it needs to keep some of it’s writers from moving off platform.

Medium for me is now a syndicate. I write in my own editor, prioritize my direct writings, and host on my own website. Medium is the best route to traffic for now, but their paywall really limits access. If you Google Medium Paywall Problem or something of the like, you get tons of titles and testimonials to how the paywall is limiting access (because they don’t distribute articles not in the paywall).

The average order of views I get with and without the paywall is striking:

• Without using their distribution (0–100s of views)
• Using their distribution, no publications (0–1,000s of views)
• Using a syndicate publication such as towardsdatascience.com (100s-10,000s of views)

The relationship between quality of what I write and these views is almost entirely separated, and that is the biggest problem for me. What I want: a platform with a clean reading interface where I know my readers can follow me and connect with my content — any risk of disruption to access is all the reason to leave, and disruption to followership is a barrier to enter.

Here’s chronological events as Medium tries to save its writers.