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Thanks for taking the time to reply. I used to love medium. Such a rich source of content. Then a wall was built. And I started reading about writers having the

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I used to love medium. Such a rich source of content. Then a wall was built. And I started reading about writers having their content forced behind it. There’s just too much content elsewhere to justify subscriptions. Your only way back is removing them. Find another way to monetise. Micropayments maybe. Advertisements I could put up with. But until then Medium is this annoying platform that pollutes my search results and wastes my time.

WalterBright 4y ago
Perhaps the solution is for the authors to pay to put it on Medium. Make that be the business model. Put no ads on the site. That may eliminate the incentive to spam and SEO. So why would a writer do that? To build a reputation that can be turned into money elsewhere, like being able to charge higher consulting fees.
- GrooveSAN 4y ago
  I’d second that and can relate as I’d have loved to pay Medium for an enterprise global account that would’ve allowed selected, smart engineers from my current company to post blogs that would escape the Medium paywall. Looks like to me that option doesn’t exist on Medium - or I’m not able to find my way through your website. That being said, you Medium folks - as it looks like you’re actively reading this thread - should work in priority on the global perception that Medium is hosting more and more clickbait and superficial content, as that is a possible concern for people like me who’d be willing to give you corporate money so that our possible readers would bypass the paywall. In a nutshell: work on an option (or pivot to?) making good writers pay for publishing content and get rid of the others. Some of those writer will be fine with paying (corporate branding is their goal), while some others will ask for their share of the fame created and you may want to go the Patreon way for them, i.e. asking readers to pay as an option (?)
- duckmysick 4y ago
  How would that work for existing authors? Would they be forced onto paid plans? Would their old articles still be available? Culling existing free plans is not popular, as we saw with Slack and Heroku. > So why would a writer do that? To build a reputation that can be turned into money elsewhere, like being able to charge higher consulting fees. Why would a writer do that specifically on Medium and not on, say, Substack? Maybe they really have a unique and loyal audience. It's hard to say without knowing their traffic data. But if a lot of their readers come from social media, does it matter to the reader if the shared link leads to medium.com or substack.com?
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > Why would a writer do that specifically on Medium If it made Medium the go-to place for people looking for high quality content that was free of SEO spammy articles, that would be an excellent reason. Heck, I write articles and I'd pay to have my article posted on a well-regarded site. But I see no point to posting it on free sites with a reputation for low quality. There's an old saying "it's free and worth every penny". Instead I post them on sites under my control, like digitalmars.com, where I can control the quality of the site.

WalterBright 4y ago

Perhaps the solution is for the authors to pay to put it on Medium. Make that be the business model. Put no ads on the site. That may eliminate the incentive to spam and SEO. So why would a writer do that? To build a reputation that can be turned into money elsewhere, like being able to charge higher consulting fees.

GrooveSAN 4y ago
I’d second that and can relate as I’d have loved to pay Medium for an enterprise global account that would’ve allowed selected, smart engineers from my current company to post blogs that would escape the Medium paywall. Looks like to me that option doesn’t exist on Medium - or I’m not able to find my way through your website. That being said, you Medium folks - as it looks like you’re actively reading this thread - should work in priority on the global perception that Medium is hosting more and more clickbait and superficial content, as that is a possible concern for people like me who’d be willing to give you corporate money so that our possible readers would bypass the paywall. In a nutshell: work on an option (or pivot to?) making good writers pay for publishing content and get rid of the others. Some of those writer will be fine with paying (corporate branding is their goal), while some others will ask for their share of the fame created and you may want to go the Patreon way for them, i.e. asking readers to pay as an option (?)
duckmysick 4y ago
How would that work for existing authors? Would they be forced onto paid plans? Would their old articles still be available? Culling existing free plans is not popular, as we saw with Slack and Heroku. > So why would a writer do that? To build a reputation that can be turned into money elsewhere, like being able to charge higher consulting fees. Why would a writer do that specifically on Medium and not on, say, Substack? Maybe they really have a unique and loyal audience. It's hard to say without knowing their traffic data. But if a lot of their readers come from social media, does it matter to the reader if the shared link leads to medium.com or substack.com?
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > Why would a writer do that specifically on Medium If it made Medium the go-to place for people looking for high quality content that was free of SEO spammy articles, that would be an excellent reason. Heck, I write articles and I'd pay to have my article posted on a well-regarded site. But I see no point to posting it on free sites with a reputation for low quality. There's an old saying "it's free and worth every penny". Instead I post them on sites under my control, like digitalmars.com, where I can control the quality of the site.