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Medium rolls out a payment model for writers based on engagement
- epx 9y agoWouldn't that invite for more extremist/incendiary texts?
- AnkleInsurance 9y agoAre you implying certain viewpoints aren't worthy of their own space to be expressed?
- paulcole 9y agoI'm not implying it, I'm saying it: some points of view don't belong on Medium (or anywhere else that I might see them).
- Spivak 9y agoSo you want an institutionalized echo chamber rather than just an organic one? Are you really so afraid of these people that you believe they have to be silenced? I can understand certain behaviors not being allowed but viewpoints?
- paulcole 9y ago>So you want an institutionalized echo chamber rather than just an organic one? Yes. I would love to support a site that puts its foot down and says extreme, offensive viewpoints are prohibited. And yes, I am afraid of (some of) "these people." Have you not watched the news for like the last fifty years?
- to_bpr 9y ago>And yes, I am afraid of (some of) "these people." I am far, far more afraid of you and those who share your viewpoint.
- paulcole 9y agoReally, you are more afraid of someone who would rather not support nazis than actual nazis?
- to_bpr 9y agoThe number of actual nazis around is so incredibly small that it's not just statistically insignificant, but had that car related incident not happened recently it would go almost totally unmentioned. The number of people such as yourself who want to censor speech and police thought, however, is frighteningly high. You are the same as those who advocated for book bannings and burnings at other points in history and it is depressing that your point of view has the strength it currently does once again.
- rainbowmverse 9y agoMaybe not Nazis, but violent bigots are quite abundant. 19 trans women have been murdered just this year, and that's just what gets reported. I hear personal accounts from LGBTQ friends daily about threats and actual violence. Then there's all the other stuff people like me deal with: losing housing, jobs, family because we finally got up the courage to live as who we are rather than what powerful sections of society expect us to be. I'm a lot more afraid of someone who's decided it's time to "show them queers who's boss" with me as the target than someone who wants to keep that same person off Medium. There are ample publishing opportunities for bigots. Unlike refusing to serve someone at the only grocery store in town, one of a million publishing outlets refusing to take an article has minimal effect. Relevant aside: the picture of the Nazi book burning often shown when talking about free speech was from a clinic in Germany that researched and supported LGBTQ people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissenschaft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissen...
- dredmorbius 9y agoYou seem to be deliberately choosing the least charitable interpretation of your interlocutor's argument or statement. That's neither becoming nor conducive to discourse.
- james_pm 9y agoThere's a valid concern that Medium would be sending money to those with "alt" viewpoints, or that Medium ends up having to censor those same "alt" viewpoints (de-platforming) to avoid that.
- AnkleInsurance 9y agoPeople with good content that you don't agree with don't deserve the same opportunity to be paid for their content? I've never used medium but it's starting to sound like I better not bother.
- jessaustin 9y agoThe most interesting bit is the footer with links to discussions of the organizations leaving Medium... apparently this time donations will be the answer!
- 0xbear 9y agoPeople pay for Medium? I fail to see what useful service it provides.
- raleigh_user 9y agoIts about time for facebook to buy medium and roll it into some sort of longer form content portion of their offering. LinkedIn/Microsoft acquiring them would also be interesting since writing on LI is absolutely horrible. Seems medium is lost product wise. It is getting progressively worse and the new "clap" feature is hilariously bad.
- danielharrison 9y agoI like the clap feature. I wasn't quite sure what to think of it at the start but it definitely better than a binary 'like'. It gives me the ability to drop 'claps' as I'm scrolling through an article and liking certain parts. I get to the end and there's a total of however-many claps I've clapped. I hope medium are tracking the position each clap was made, along with certain things like if a user genuinely read the article - opposed to those who just clapped from the front page or at the top of the article without scrolling.
- jmnicolas 9y agoDo you really want a writer to wright for claps or to say what she has to say ?
- makecheck 9y agoOne problem with that is Facebook is likely to hide all content behind a login wall. At least now the text is accessible.
- dredmorbius 9y agoThat creates the obvious problem that Facebook would then own it, and use it to feed its own gaping personal behavioural tracking maw. No. Fucking. Thanks.
- exidy 9y agoSeems like a recipe for clapbait.
- bradgessler 9y agoAnd clapfraud
- welcomebrand 9y agoand Russian clapfarms
- matt_s 9y agoI was going to reply with a "is this reddit?" But these compact comments are insightful into what could happen.
- amrrs 9y agoThere are not many social media platforms where users pay more undivided attention. Medium is one such platform where Long form articles get attention and they've got an active user base too. Paywall - Medium Member seems to be a decent monetization plan yet without Writers being shared the same income, Quality articles might not flow in. This seems to be a wise decision for a company to get some numbers on their balance sheet and gain some giant's attention for potential acquisition!
- perlgeek 9y agoTracking reading would probably be a better measure than something that a reader has to do consciously. With the extra action required, you reward agreeable content, not necessarily interesting content.
- jph 9y agoMedium has a core challenge ahead, and IMHO the opportunity is more akin to Patreon donations and less akin to Facebook likes. I read many long blog posts especially about tech. I donate money to many authors and creators. I've learned the hard way that paywalls interfere with my ability to share links with more people, and undermine open source discussions. And voting systems tend to be gamed. Medium's price point is a risk. Flat monthly fees of $5 is too low for what I spend on quality writing, but also too high for many people in less-wealthy areas. I advocate a tip jar. It's the worst form of payment, except for all the others. I also advocate a sponsorship button to encourage future writing and projects. I believe success looks a lot like what creators such as Amanda Palmer are doing with fundraising. If you're interested, watch her TED talk or her Patreon page. I don't know if her way would work for part-time writers, or ad-hoc bloggers. I do believe it's a worthwhile experiment.
- subpixel 9y agoWhat works for creators (something like Patreon) won't work for Medium in this case. Medium needs to profit in a substantial way, and billing millions of credit cards every month seems the only way to get there. The clap-funding thing is just an attempt at including creators so they don't stop using Medium. But, as a product, Medium is only a nice-to-have. My willingness to support my favorite writers is wholly disconnected from an interest in paying Medium for access. If they hadn't taken so much money, Medium could be funded like Wikipedia. My $5/mo would feel better spent if it were helping fund the operation as opposed to propping up a billionaire's latest experiment. That said, maybe we should all just be thankful Medium isn't trying to solve their problem with an ICO.
- snarf21 9y agoI agree with you and there is no best method. I think the sponsorship kind of approach is generally best. I posted previously that I think some kind pay per read (micro-payment) might work if done right. Something like this: Any writer can submit an article with a micro-payment pay wall but first they must have previously done the following: They must have submitted a free article (500+ words?) within the last 12 months (and maybe requires some number of likes on your free articles) and the first 100 words are available as a snippet. Then if you like the author and the idea of the article you pay ($1? or ??) out of your Medium balance. Authors are required to invest and develop a following but then it is easy for them to monetize their supporters. I also removes any kind of fraud since it is direct payment. I think the other thing that Medium needs to improve on is helping to expose new authors with something interesting to say. Just emailing me all new articles every day is annoying. I'd rather get a list of three once a week that have been vetted and I'm likely to enjoy.
- zoul 9y agoBTW: A branding statement from Medium shared with Poynter says the new wordmark and branding system "reflects the unique and dynamic nature of the ideas you can find on Medium without compromising the voices and stories shared." It always amazes me that people can come up with this stuff with a straight face.
- _pmf_ 9y agoYears spent in business school has conditioned them for this.
- bryanrasmussen 9y agoin my experience you don't come up with it with a straight face, but you do publicize it with a straight face.
- metalliqaz 9y agoAbsolutely. Similar things happen in other fields from engineering to showbiz. (aka brainstorming) What amazes me is that people have a different "mode" in publicity/advertising that allows them to consume this stuff seriously.
- senatorobama 9y agoIt's called hustling.
- Finnucane 9y agoA lot of effort goes into architecting sentences like that.
- return0 9y agoThey should know nobody falls for that
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- allenleein 9y agoExpanding the Medium Partner Program https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15074123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15074123 FYI
- eterm 9y agoI'm not sure I want to give someone the clap! (It is slang for gonorrhea, although perhaps a bit archaic now.)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- minademian 9y agoFeels like Medium is clutching at straws after failing with the Members-Only content model...
- uuoc 9y agoAttention Medium writers: If you want claps, then you must insist that Medium drop the dickbars (see: https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars). Medium with dickbars? = No claps.
- eterm 9y agoAre dickbars the things that break me reading medium by popping up every time I highlight text? (Which I do frequently while reading).
- have_faith 9y agoI highlight text as I'm reading too, clicking very fast as I do. Every time one of those share boxes pops up and because of my fast clicking I accidentally click some 'tweet highlighted text' button I almost have an aneurysm.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bemmu 9y agoI recently did a test of what percentage of HN users highlight text as they read. 11.52%
- have_faith 9y ago61% according to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4839436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4839436, ignoring to increase text contrast. Would be very interested in what percentage of "regular" people have the habit. My girlfriend looked very puzzled when she first observed me doing it and found it very peculiar.
- AnkleInsurance 9y agoDaring Fireball in 2017? No claps. DF wasn't funny or interesting years ago and it hasn't changed. "Hurr hurr #Dickbar" Disgusting.
- Brajeshwar 9y agoPerhaps a bit off topic but Medium seems to be experimenting and "pushing" writers to write more. I don't write regularly and my articles don't attract much traffic/visitors. However, the followers are increasing exponentially for no apparent reason. I see no correlation with anything and I don't know where to look.
- mgiannopoulos 9y ago"Medium pays authors by dividing up every individual subscriber’s fee between the different articles they’ve read that month." So if you read one article during a month , your entire fee would go to one source even if you are subscribed to many sources ? Not sure how to feel about this.
- metalliqaz 9y agoWhy? It's the consumer's fault s/he over paid for one article. Author got lucky. Good for them.
- mgiannopoulos 9y agoIf I want to support a source without remembering to read every article or clap a thousand times , I can't under this model. Plus, is this going to be transparent to the readers? Will I know how my 5$ were split among sources?
- nrhk 9y agoWell if your trying to support a source and don't read any of their content are they really benefiting engagement to the platform like Medium wants? Maybe they can add a Patreon system as well.
- pc86 9y agoOnce you pay Medium, it's Medium's money. Sending fine-grained monetary support to content creators is exactly what Patreon is for.
- mustafabisic1 9y agoMedium is definitely making some major moves and I love it. Especially the claps. They are so many quality posts there and I love giving people standing ovation they deserve.
- thanatropism 9y agoCan you give us some examples of such quality posts?
- mustafabisic1 9y agoSure thing man. 1. https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/10-cold-email-tips-i-used-to-get-60-000-app-signups-dd928d86ca21#.h0s9l6wzp https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/10-cold-em... - was on HN homepage 2. https://chatbotslife.com/how-i-got-100k-users-in-1-month-using-a-viral-loop-86a83b4509df https://chatbotslife.com/how-i-got-100k-users-in-1-month-usi... 3. https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-you-can-land-a-6-figure-job-in-tech-with-no-connections-6eed0de26ea4 https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-you-can-land-a-6-figure-... 4. https://medium.com/personal-growth/how-to-use-angellist-to-get-a-remote-job-53d33f62532f https://medium.com/personal-growth/how-to-use-angellist-to-g...
- thanatropism 9y agoThose read like spammy, scammy get-rich-quick titles to me.
- tyingq 9y agoHow do claps == engagement? I read quite a lot of articles that are well written, but that I don't agree with. So, I'm engaged, but I likely won't "clap". Wouldn't this drive writers to just pander to the majority opinion?
- conception 9y agoOr worse, lowest common denominator "10 reasons to get a dog!" BuzzFeed style posts.
- cvsh 9y agoThat's pretty much exactly what Medium is, except with a self-help / entrepreneurship spin
- rm_-rf_slash 9y ago"10 Reasons Why Getting A Dog Will Help You Achieve Your Dreams"
- rch 9y agoI also think that it's a mistake to conflate public sharing with engagement, but the renumeration model is sound. Hopefully they'll roll out another redesign that manages to keep the economic mechanics intact.
- 5trokerac3 9y agoThat's all blogging ever has been. It's been long overdue that we stop pretending it's the new home of the literati.
- adrianN 9y agoHas it ever been different? It's very hard to get published if you write things that don't appeal to a large number of people.
- 9y ago
- amingilani 9y agoI love this idea! It's like what a lot of cryptocurrency powered content sites work like https://steemit.com/ https://steemit.com/ where you upvote with crypto. But this brings it to the fiat world. And members get access to paid content. It's awesome! I just wish Medium worked on their white-labelling a bit more, and added a few advanced editorial features and I'd switch our company blog over immediately.
- koolba 9y ago> Essentially, we look at the engagement of each individual member (claps being the primary signal) and allocate their monthly subscription fee based on that engagement. Reminds me of the sad Jeb Bush quote from last year, "Please clap.". > To make its new pay-by-engagement initiative work, Medium needs to get enough people to shell out the $5/per month membership fee. I don't see this model ever working. I just don't see content worth paying for. Most of the articles I read, be it on Medium or elsewhere, are by people who are passionate about a subject who want their content to be as widespread as possible. The content creators I see using this are not those people. > The paywall will now be metered, mirroring similar paywalls at The New York Times and The Washington Post, allowing non-members a limited amount of locked stories each month. Surely I'm not the only one that regularly clears their browser cookies. I've never ran into this being an issue for any of those sites.
- narimanj 9y agoHow about a payment model based on PageRank? This way Medium can measure the engagement from all over the web and not just Medium or Medium partners.
- abhisuri97 9y agoWhile the idea of showing extent of engagement is great, I can't help but notice that articles which would only have 10-12 recommends have 200-300 claps mostly bc those claps come from friends of the author trying to promote the story. It makes it incredibly difficult as a reader to objectively ascertain what is actually more recommended by people. Additionally, as a reader, I have no idea what amount of claps is appropriate (eg is 10 claps excessive for a good article or is it not enough?). The recommend model was excellent, don't fix it if it aint broke.
- CharlesW 9y agoI couldn't agree with this more. And from many other services that have since simplified their ratings, Medium should already know that people are going to give articles either one "clap" or all the "claps" they can, making the additional feedback precision mostly pointless. I actually find myself using Medium less recently, I think because of this (perceived, at least) additional complexity.
- maxscam 9y agoIs there really any way around this? It seams like the cheapest kind of social engineering
- rewrew 9y agoThere's no reason to have the "claps" -- they could easily measure engagement without the readers having to actively do anything (visits to page/time on site, etc.). This reeks of a gimmick/someone trying to do something for their MBA thesis, vs. actually trying to get authors fairly paid.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]