3 ms·

I think Medium definitely needs a subscription plan of some kind. I think others are like me and would be glad to pay a monthly patronage to encourage good writ

by snarf21 10y ago

I think Medium definitely needs a subscription plan of some kind. I think others are like me and would be glad to pay a monthly patronage to encourage good writing. The key is making sure the money gets to the creators so the content can drive the audience. The tricky part is doing it in such a way that the system can't be gamed. So let's say I get 10 article credits for my monthly subscription. I'd be glad to "pay" $0.50 an article if I knew 80% went to the writer. Each writer would have to invest in as many free teaser articles that they needed to write in order develop an audience. Medium could then still recommend articles they like but I'd rather see ones that people "like me" read and enjoyed. I'd sign up for a service like this so please take my money.

qqrs 10y ago
After the Medium announcement in January, I've been very curious what their new direction would turn out to be. I'll be waiting to see how it plays out before judging, but this really is not what I was hoping for. It seems clear that there is a new appetite for paying to support quality content that did not exist four months ago. But I already pay for quality content that is curated by an editorial authority (The Washington Post, etc.). I'm still looking for way to support good content that is too niche for mass-market consumption. What I really want is a micropayments service that saves a record of every blog post I want to support. Then, at the end of the month, I can set my "subscription" budget and allocate it to the creator of each saved post based on the value I got from it and my desire to see the creator produce similar content. Basically I want to: 1. support content I read 2. but not blow my monthly budget by paying a fixed price per piece 3. and not support clickbait junk just because I was linked to it and read it So from a monthly a budget of $20, a couple really good posts might get $1 or $2. NYTimes CPM is $8 (or $0.008 per ad view) [2] so even $0.05 - $0.10 for an average article beats top-end ad revenues, except for sites with highly targeted audiences (assuming no one clicks the ads, which is almost entirely the case for certain audiences that might care about high quality content). I think Flattr is supposed to work to be a little like this, but I couldn't even get it to accept my (American) credit card. Patreon is intended for larger recurring payments to creators. So as far as I know this doesn't already exists. But I really wish it did. [1] https://blog.medium.com/renewing-mediums-focus-98f374a960be https://blog.medium.com/renewing-mediums-focus-98f374a960be [2] http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/selfservice/help.html http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/selfservice/help.html
username223 10y ago
> So let's say I get 10 article credits for my monthly subscription. I'd be glad to "pay" $0.50 an article if I knew 80% went to the writer. Each writer would have to invest in as many free teaser articles... Isn't this just clickbait all over again? If you were actually willing to pay for good writing, a simple email address or paypal link would be enough. But you aren't, so it's not, and online writers have to do all sorts of strange things to pay the bills.
- snarf21 10y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by clickbait. The thing I think you are paying Medium for is discovery from the user side. The writers are attracted there for the audience side. So let's say I'm an author and I put I paywall in front of my articles. How do I get 100K people to even read my free article and come to my site? I agree that if that problem were easy, I'd not need Medium. I also think that by paying for the bundle, I'm more likely to consume up to that amount meaning more writers get paid which encourages more articles and more writers to try also.

by snarf21 10y ago

qqrs 10y ago

After the Medium announcement in January, I've been very curious what their new direction would turn out to be. I'll be waiting to see how it plays out before judging, but this really is not what I was hoping for. It seems clear that there is a new appetite for paying to support quality content that did not exist four months ago. But I already pay for quality content that is curated by an editorial authority (The Washington Post, etc.). I'm still looking for way to support good content that is too niche for mass-market consumption. What I really want is a micropayments service that saves a record of every blog post I want to support. Then, at the end of the month, I can set my "subscription" budget and allocate it to the creator of each saved post based on the value I got from it and my desire to see the creator produce similar content. Basically I want to: 1. support content I read 2. but not blow my monthly budget by paying a fixed price per piece 3. and not support clickbait junk just because I was linked to it and read it So from a monthly a budget of $20, a couple really good posts might get $1 or $2. NYTimes CPM is $8 (or $0.008 per ad view) [2] so even $0.05 - $0.10 for an average article beats top-end ad revenues, except for sites with highly targeted audiences (assuming no one clicks the ads, which is almost entirely the case for certain audiences that might care about high quality content). I think Flattr is supposed to work to be a little like this, but I couldn't even get it to accept my (American) credit card. Patreon is intended for larger recurring payments to creators. So as far as I know this doesn't already exists. But I really wish it did. [1] https://blog.medium.com/renewing-mediums-focus-98f374a960be https://blog.medium.com/renewing-mediums-focus-98f374a960be [2] http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/selfservice/help.html http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/selfservice/help.html

username223 10y ago

> So let's say I get 10 article credits for my monthly subscription. I'd be glad to "pay" $0.50 an article if I knew 80% went to the writer. Each writer would have to invest in as many free teaser articles... Isn't this just clickbait all over again? If you were actually willing to pay for good writing, a simple email address or paypal link would be enough. But you aren't, so it's not, and online writers have to do all sorts of strange things to pay the bills.

snarf21 10y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by clickbait. The thing I think you are paying Medium for is discovery from the user side. The writers are attracted there for the audience side. So let's say I'm an author and I put I paywall in front of my articles. How do I get 100K people to even read my free article and come to my site? I agree that if that problem were easy, I'd not need Medium. I also think that by paying for the bundle, I'm more likely to consume up to that amount meaning more writers get paid which encourages more articles and more writers to try also.