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I'm the new guy replacing Ev at Medium. I don't think that you can't build a subscription business at Medium. What I told the team internally is that we had a

I'm the new guy replacing Ev at Medium. I don't think that you can't build a subscription business at Medium. What I told the team internally is that we had a Goldilocks problem where one thing we tried was wrong in one direction and what we're doing now is problematic in a different direction. But I've been publishing on Medium since the beginning and have a pretty good sense of the intersection of quality and Medium's model. What I'm saying is keep an open mind. We grew a pretty large subscription already with a lot still that we can do to make it much higher quality.

__rito__ 4y ago
I quit your platform because you didn't have Partner Program in India. I do not want to monetize my writings anymore, but there was one day, when I did. But your behavior made that impossible. You said once Stripe start working in India, you'd start MPP in India, then they started in Beta. Then you said when Stripe comes out of Beta, you will have MPP in India. Then when Stripe started full-fledged service in India, you stopped mentioning India. This behavior really frustrated me and made me stopped considering Medium seriously for anything. I made good money on Quora in the past. They could send money to India- no problem, but not you guys. I don't want money for my writings now. I want all of them to be free. But I am angry at Medium, and would never be returning.
ok123456 4y ago
can you cool it with the javascript?
hartator 4y ago
Good luck Tony. I've been using Medium as a reader, writer, and subscriber for some years. And nowadays I am unconsciously not using Medium as much in profit of Substack and Ghost. My main draw to Medium as a writer was to reach lot of people. A random paywall means less reach. Not sure if max reach and paywall are reconcilable and solvable.
- socialdemocrat 4y ago
  But you choose yourself if you want to paywall an article. If you don’t like paywall articles then don’t create them. What am I missing?
  - hartator 4y ago
    When I wrote the article on Medium, it was no paywall.
dilap 4y ago
As a reader there's always a little groan inside when I see something is hosted on Medium. 'Cuz, here, look at it: https://imgur.com/a/EIAp2UM https://imgur.com/a/EIAp2UM There's so much junk in the way of the content. It feels like Medium doesn't respect the text or the act of reading. Night and day compared to Substack. If I'm in any way typical, you've got a lot of work to do to overcome the negative associations of the brand.
- duck 4y ago
  I would say it isn't a stretch at all to say most people feel that way. I stopped including any Medium hosted articles in my HN newsletter b/c of complaints from lots of subscribers that they couldn't read them. I'll have to dig up my analysis I did last year (using BigQuery HN data), but on HN there are more Medium links than ever, but they tend not to get voted on at the same rate as older stories which tells me at least for the HN crowd it isn't worth clicking on them.
  - geodel 4y ago
    I mean yes, I would not click on any article hosted on medium. And it is not just because of incessant login popup that many correctly noted. It is also because I feel if any individual / company can not host their articles and blogs on their own platform they are not worth reading. I dislike their reasoning on at least two counts: 1) It is too much work: In world of static site publishing and easy cloud hosting it is not too much work for technically competent person to host their own content if they have something worthwhile to say. 2) Not our core competency: Many companies or teams who say this sounds to me management style BS. If hosting few articles in your domain is beyond their competency then I can't really trust whatever cloud, big data, distributed, serverless computing they are talking about.
    - rco8786 4y ago
      It’s interesting that you draw the line specifically at the software serving the post. Should the individual/company own the hardware also? The OS running on the server?
jsemrau 4y ago
I was writing on Medium for many years building a small audience of 1300 followers. While the posting experience is nice. Content discovery is terrible. Content monetization is even worse. I can't justify researching a post for hours for no reads and no money.
- socialdemocrat 4y ago
  What do you recommend instead. I have had some measure of success on a medium but don’t like it’s current direction and need to find alternatives.
RC_ITR 4y ago
Unsolicited advice: The best media/social networks do two jobs: 1) Allow creators to make content (Medium does great at this, Ev’s eye for product was key here, but always room to improve) 2) Match that content with the correct/largest possible audience, like how twitter has hashtags/trending, FB has the friend graph, and ultimately Tik Tok has the algorithm (Medium is awful at this and if I were you, I’d focus immediately on solving this).
deleted 4y ago
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hyeomans 4y ago
I just created my account @ Medium and got this weird sign-up follow up page: https://imgur.com/a/ItWEJoI https://imgur.com/a/ItWEJoI
- etc-hosts 4y ago
  are you complaining that Medium wants your email address to identify you? Fight the good fight I guess.
  - nomel 4y ago
    In my experience, if it's not somewhat of a pain to sign up, I know the platform will be completely filled with spam.
- prawn 4y ago
  Isn't this a completely normal sign-up flow? Seen it many times.
  - Kye 4y ago
    The website you're on right now doesn't require an email address.
CuriousSkeptic 4y ago
I feel the main problem with medium is that i breaks the web. Putting a paywall at the other end of a link makes that a broken link. Somewhere I feel that when an author link to an article, that link is an invitation to consume the linked text. It just feels uncivilised to put out links and then not deliver on it. That said, I was at one time a subscriber of LWN. The model there was that articles were subscriber only the first week, and then public after that. _Unless_ a subscriber decided to provide a link, then the article was also available for anyone following that link. Perhaps thats a model that could work for Medium? If I ever get an rss-reader up, and start following sources again I could perhaps see my self pay a subscription for “early access” feeds (to support some pore journalist doing actual reporting if nothing else)
- socialdemocrat 4y ago
  I see a lot of complaints about the paywall but few offer any suggestions for alternatives. Somehow people who create content have to be able to get paid. One cannot write everything for free.
  - CuriousSkeptic 4y ago
    If you read my post again you might find that I did, in fact, suggest an alternative.
kromem 4y ago
Personally the content model that's always made the most sense to me is a Kickstarter-like format where content pitches raise the funds necessary to execute on them and then distribution is free and unfettered, or don't happen at all if there's a lack of audience interest (saving the author the effort). In particular for written content, the threshold for funding is low and the bar for execution is as well, which skirts a lot of the issues the actual Kickstarter has. And if funding is anonymous, there isn't any direct issue with undue influence from benefactors. There's a number of written pieces I'd happily pay to help bring into existence. And a number of other pitches that even if I wouldn't be interested in funding, I'd be interested in creating an account to vote up to increase visibility to those that would, and in both cases being notified when that content finally exists. But I have very little interest in simply funding an author in general, or paying to access content when summaries of anything important will exist elsewhere, or even in wasting my time with free material that's over engineered towards clickbait and maximizing my scrolling to serve the most ads. In particular, I'd love to fund a return of actual investigative journalism on topics I'd value. We saw the short tail of this in action with Sanderson on the actual Kickstarter, but I definitely think there's a long tail model viability on a specialized platform for written content. In any case, good luck with the new role.
- xiaolingxiao 4y ago
  So you mean fund magazines or writer collectives? I feel like mirror was trying to be that but then moved away from it. Presumably because peopel don’t want to read the same crypto shill articles over and over again
  - kromem 4y ago
    No, funding individual pieces. Instead of a freelance writer pitching a story to an editor of the NYT, throw it up on a site where the pitches can be seen and funded directly by their potential audience. If the NYT was going to pay a few hundred dollars for the article, that's a very low threshold for funding. Obviously writers with a portfolio of past work will have an advantage in that system, but even fresh talent could build up a portfolio with interesting pitches at low funding goals. A lot of content curation is built around a paradigm where the editors speculate about what their audience actually wants, and that's not always very accurate. I recall a friend who wrote about sexual politics for major publications who had a hard time getting a pitch for a story on child free attitudes sold to the editor, and yet that piece ended up the most read and shared for the year. Remove the middleman and allow writers to sell the pitch directly to the audience - who if they care about it enough will fund it and read it when finished. And then don't care about trying to control or hinder further distribution or handicapping the piece/headline to optimize clicks or ads. Monetize the creation and not the distribution.
deleted 4y ago
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rschachte 4y ago
Please fix the horrible UX of Medium. The site is trash to use. For a while I just had an extension parse and proxy me to a better, cleaner alternative. It’s full of banners, popups and annoyances that is completely opposite of what you’d want in a site where you focus and learn something
5F7bGnd6fWJ66xN 4y ago
Transaction costs to find good content within Medium is too expensive (in time invested). Sporadic posts, with hit or miss in getting quality content Opinion masquerading as facts most of the time Hidden agendas not revealed upfront Editorial standards unknown In a world where everyone is an expert, there no real experts Twitter long form (in limited rollout now) will kill Medium

__rito__ 4y ago

I quit your platform because you didn't have Partner Program in India. I do not want to monetize my writings anymore, but there was one day, when I did. But your behavior made that impossible. You said once Stripe start working in India, you'd start MPP in India, then they started in Beta. Then you said when Stripe comes out of Beta, you will have MPP in India. Then when Stripe started full-fledged service in India, you stopped mentioning India. This behavior really frustrated me and made me stopped considering Medium seriously for anything. I made good money on Quora in the past. They could send money to India- no problem, but not you guys. I don't want money for my writings now. I want all of them to be free. But I am angry at Medium, and would never be returning.

ok123456 4y ago

can you cool it with the javascript?

hartator 4y ago

Good luck Tony. I've been using Medium as a reader, writer, and subscriber for some years. And nowadays I am unconsciously not using Medium as much in profit of Substack and Ghost. My main draw to Medium as a writer was to reach lot of people. A random paywall means less reach. Not sure if max reach and paywall are reconcilable and solvable.

socialdemocrat 4y ago
But you choose yourself if you want to paywall an article. If you don’t like paywall articles then don’t create them. What am I missing?
- hartator 4y ago
  When I wrote the article on Medium, it was no paywall.

dilap 4y ago

As a reader there's always a little groan inside when I see something is hosted on Medium. 'Cuz, here, look at it: https://imgur.com/a/EIAp2UM https://imgur.com/a/EIAp2UM There's so much junk in the way of the content. It feels like Medium doesn't respect the text or the act of reading. Night and day compared to Substack. If I'm in any way typical, you've got a lot of work to do to overcome the negative associations of the brand.

duck 4y ago
I would say it isn't a stretch at all to say most people feel that way. I stopped including any Medium hosted articles in my HN newsletter b/c of complaints from lots of subscribers that they couldn't read them. I'll have to dig up my analysis I did last year (using BigQuery HN data), but on HN there are more Medium links than ever, but they tend not to get voted on at the same rate as older stories which tells me at least for the HN crowd it isn't worth clicking on them.
- geodel 4y ago
  I mean yes, I would not click on any article hosted on medium. And it is not just because of incessant login popup that many correctly noted. It is also because I feel if any individual / company can not host their articles and blogs on their own platform they are not worth reading. I dislike their reasoning on at least two counts: 1) It is too much work: In world of static site publishing and easy cloud hosting it is not too much work for technically competent person to host their own content if they have something worthwhile to say. 2) Not our core competency: Many companies or teams who say this sounds to me management style BS. If hosting few articles in your domain is beyond their competency then I can't really trust whatever cloud, big data, distributed, serverless computing they are talking about.
  - rco8786 4y ago
    It’s interesting that you draw the line specifically at the software serving the post. Should the individual/company own the hardware also? The OS running on the server?

jsemrau 4y ago

I was writing on Medium for many years building a small audience of 1300 followers. While the posting experience is nice. Content discovery is terrible. Content monetization is even worse. I can't justify researching a post for hours for no reads and no money.

socialdemocrat 4y ago
What do you recommend instead. I have had some measure of success on a medium but don’t like it’s current direction and need to find alternatives.

RC_ITR 4y ago

Unsolicited advice: The best media/social networks do two jobs: 1) Allow creators to make content (Medium does great at this, Ev’s eye for product was key here, but always room to improve) 2) Match that content with the correct/largest possible audience, like how twitter has hashtags/trending, FB has the friend graph, and ultimately Tik Tok has the algorithm (Medium is awful at this and if I were you, I’d focus immediately on solving this).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hyeomans 4y ago

I just created my account @ Medium and got this weird sign-up follow up page: https://imgur.com/a/ItWEJoI https://imgur.com/a/ItWEJoI

etc-hosts 4y ago
are you complaining that Medium wants your email address to identify you? Fight the good fight I guess.
- nomel 4y ago
  In my experience, if it's not somewhat of a pain to sign up, I know the platform will be completely filled with spam.
prawn 4y ago
Isn't this a completely normal sign-up flow? Seen it many times.
- Kye 4y ago
  The website you're on right now doesn't require an email address.

CuriousSkeptic 4y ago

I feel the main problem with medium is that i breaks the web. Putting a paywall at the other end of a link makes that a broken link. Somewhere I feel that when an author link to an article, that link is an invitation to consume the linked text. It just feels uncivilised to put out links and then not deliver on it. That said, I was at one time a subscriber of LWN. The model there was that articles were subscriber only the first week, and then public after that. _Unless_ a subscriber decided to provide a link, then the article was also available for anyone following that link. Perhaps thats a model that could work for Medium? If I ever get an rss-reader up, and start following sources again I could perhaps see my self pay a subscription for “early access” feeds (to support some pore journalist doing actual reporting if nothing else)

socialdemocrat 4y ago
I see a lot of complaints about the paywall but few offer any suggestions for alternatives. Somehow people who create content have to be able to get paid. One cannot write everything for free.
- CuriousSkeptic 4y ago
  If you read my post again you might find that I did, in fact, suggest an alternative.

kromem 4y ago

Personally the content model that's always made the most sense to me is a Kickstarter-like format where content pitches raise the funds necessary to execute on them and then distribution is free and unfettered, or don't happen at all if there's a lack of audience interest (saving the author the effort). In particular for written content, the threshold for funding is low and the bar for execution is as well, which skirts a lot of the issues the actual Kickstarter has. And if funding is anonymous, there isn't any direct issue with undue influence from benefactors. There's a number of written pieces I'd happily pay to help bring into existence. And a number of other pitches that even if I wouldn't be interested in funding, I'd be interested in creating an account to vote up to increase visibility to those that would, and in both cases being notified when that content finally exists. But I have very little interest in simply funding an author in general, or paying to access content when summaries of anything important will exist elsewhere, or even in wasting my time with free material that's over engineered towards clickbait and maximizing my scrolling to serve the most ads. In particular, I'd love to fund a return of actual investigative journalism on topics I'd value. We saw the short tail of this in action with Sanderson on the actual Kickstarter, but I definitely think there's a long tail model viability on a specialized platform for written content. In any case, good luck with the new role.

xiaolingxiao 4y ago
So you mean fund magazines or writer collectives? I feel like mirror was trying to be that but then moved away from it. Presumably because peopel don’t want to read the same crypto shill articles over and over again
- kromem 4y ago
  No, funding individual pieces. Instead of a freelance writer pitching a story to an editor of the NYT, throw it up on a site where the pitches can be seen and funded directly by their potential audience. If the NYT was going to pay a few hundred dollars for the article, that's a very low threshold for funding. Obviously writers with a portfolio of past work will have an advantage in that system, but even fresh talent could build up a portfolio with interesting pitches at low funding goals. A lot of content curation is built around a paradigm where the editors speculate about what their audience actually wants, and that's not always very accurate. I recall a friend who wrote about sexual politics for major publications who had a hard time getting a pitch for a story on child free attitudes sold to the editor, and yet that piece ended up the most read and shared for the year. Remove the middleman and allow writers to sell the pitch directly to the audience - who if they care about it enough will fund it and read it when finished. And then don't care about trying to control or hinder further distribution or handicapping the piece/headline to optimize clicks or ads. Monetize the creation and not the distribution.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rschachte 4y ago

Please fix the horrible UX of Medium. The site is trash to use. For a while I just had an extension parse and proxy me to a better, cleaner alternative. It’s full of banners, popups and annoyances that is completely opposite of what you’d want in a site where you focus and learn something

5F7bGnd6fWJ66xN 4y ago

Transaction costs to find good content within Medium is too expensive (in time invested). Sporadic posts, with hit or miss in getting quality content Opinion masquerading as facts most of the time Hidden agendas not revealed upfront Editorial standards unknown In a world where everyone is an expert, there no real experts Twitter long form (in limited rollout now) will kill Medium