It's just a dumpster fire and I cannot understand why Medium can't see it's sinking its own ship. I am one of the authentic and veteran writers whose work used to be boosted nearly every time and my earnings were generally in the four figure range. But now, there's no curation, no distribution, certainly no boosts, miniscule views, and I'll be lucky to get $50 this month. So I'm bailing, like almost every other good writer. This has got to be a disastrous business decision. As for the pub owners who are sucking up--I have no respect and don't waste any energy there, either.
Thanks Conni, you are not alone. Hundreds of writers, if not thousands, whose stories were boosted and even selected for staff picks in my pub Health and Science and Illumination-Curated now get a handful views from direct links as their stupid system flags them as spam while allowing real spam to take the center stage. I am very sorry this happened to you too and wish you the best in your journey. Take care.
This frustrates me as a writer who is authentic and passionate about telling stories about my life and my challenges. Six months ago I would have never thought I would be getting cents. One of my stories was published in Illumination, it shows no earnings though I know people are reading it. Very disheartened and hoping for it all to be resolved soon
You’ve got to think like a spammer. If writers can’t publish more than fifteen stories a day - and I can think of some legitimate reasons why they would - but editors can, then the obvious solution is to launch a publication and as an editor publish a tonne of stories.
Medium seems not to want to actually read what they are publishing.
Even if they did, AI in skilful hands can produce staggeringly complex and subtle stories, beautifully written. I have seen several recently that no human reader is going to pick as AI and indeed, manages to fool AI detectors.
I think Medium is becoming a casualty of AI and they aren’t in a position to climb out of the hole.
I can’t see why Medium would allow anyone - paying member or not - to publish 3 stories a day, let alone 15. If quality is to be encouraged over quantity, the solution is simple: restrict the pipe, so that writers (and even spammers) will have an incentive to only publish those pieces most likely to be read, rather than the “spray and pray” approach polluting the platform.
This makes no sense to me. In the last 3 months I only wrote two stories hardly and wonder how some people can write 15 stories a day and why. Why does Medium allow it and also restricts editor rights. They are the ones who clear the harmful content by reviewing, editing, or guiding writers. This sounds to me that Medium supports spammers unintentionally and penalizes editors. No wonder Medium became a spam place and writers lost income. I am not MPP so it does not bother me but I feel sorry for genuine writers whose stories I enjoy reading.
Most of those 15-stories-a-day people are not actually writing on their own. They're using ChatGPT or similar to churn out low quality stories, publishing them in bulk, and then using multiple accounts to clap for their own stories and generate views.
I agree that, by limiting editorial acceptances, Medium is unintentionally inhibiting editors when they should be focused more on restricting how many stories authors can publish.
Dr Broadly, thank you for unfolding this old, newly manufactured situation. On the one hand, Medium wants to prevent spam, which is a good thing, but on the other hand, they allow 15 stories to be published by writers and even 3 stories by non-member yet restrict editors from doing the cleaning process for the platform. It is contradictory, and Medium must solve this issue ASAP before it causes the boat to sink in your analogy. As Britni cleverly articulated, now some AI tools are hiding AI-written stories, and Medium boosts them because Copyleaks cannot detect them. This is very sophisticated, and Medium should stop using Copyleaks and invest in human eyes. I will articulate this complex situation in an upcoming newsletter as no one is talking about it, and Medium is not even aware of it.
In today's "The Medium Newsletter," Scott Lamb criticizes Mark Zuckerberg's decision to back away from "fact-checking" (censorship) on Meta/Facebook. I'm no Zuckerberg fan, but I applaud any move that supports free speech (what the Left calls "hate speech" because it hates dissenting views). Mr. Lamb's views don't surprise me. He's saying platform owners know best, so sit down and shut up. I think that's why Medium continues to shrug off any criticism of its recent algorithm changes.
It’s pretty odd and ironic to talk about Medium’s AI problem just to outsource the job of real podcasting to those two AI voices. I don’t mean this to be confrontational, but including these with your articles really hurts your credibility. You’re saying one thing and doing another.
Medium is nothing without us, We have to make our voices heard. Remember, there are other platforms. If we form a community we can get our stories read without Medium.
Brillant newsletter, Dr Broadly. There is such a lot going on we're not fully aware of. I think the membership hierarchy itself has inherent drawbacks, and there is scope for mind-bending. Such as saying how FOM will give 4 times more when it's not and writers thinking that upgrading to FOM will help them earn more. In my case it was less. Then those who can afford membership deliberately not wanting to, is taking advantage of the ecosystem by publishing ,and hence Medium benefit by allowing this more than allowing reads (which are strictly limited), thus increasing revenue from more memberships.
It's horrible to see Lawson Wallace belittled and bullied by snotty writers who think it's ok and get away with these bullying tactics. I had this inadvertedly myself before Xmas, as I was an editor in a publication, where 'something' happened that looked like an innocent editor had plagiarised a writer's work for profit. The condemnation by these writers, and threats to expose the 'editor' were supported by many comments on their stories, which at that stage, earned a good bit. At the same time, I did a test and published a story and later amended it, and it showed that whatever happened could've very realistically have happened after the stories were published, not before. And another editor revealed the exact same thing happened in a publication she was editing.
Eventually, the writers backed down, admitting it was likely a glitch (after making money from their stories), but never apologised. Editors shouldn't have to face this kind of abuse. The thing that concerned me most was how easily other writers left comments which clearly involved a complete lack of critical thinking, siding with these writers, who had big audiences and were very popular. As an editor it made me feel insignificant and small.
It's not just this incident, I think there are so many flaws with Medium's ecosystem, that have led to great discrimination and bias, now affecting everyone. At the end of the day, it shows we're all equal human beings deserving of respect. I feel that Medium has been corrupt for some time and it's all coming out now. I think they're trying to hold it together and present a positive image, and trying to attract certain types of writers, such as academics and students. Little do those writers know their hard work will earn 0.01 or 0.02. They even have an 'open day' planned soon purely for academic writers.
Im sorry, why do both speakers here sound like AI? I may be wrong but they must be 2 people with perfect vocie overs and would want to see a video of them talking.
Thanks a lot. I'm a bit confused by the podcast system on substack. I don't know who is talking on the podcast. They are referring to Dr Mike Briadly but his same is under the title as if he is the author of the podcast. Could someone explain who is talking please?
The Medium Partner Program is fucked. The idea of members collaborating on anything on Medium is actually the WORST idea bc that exact thing is why writers are being penalized for supporting a certain group of readers/subscribers. We are accused to having a “ring” and excluding all others writers.
AND transparency is NOT a trait on Medium at all. Their staff picks and Newsletter don’t address any of the real problems we writers are having.
This discussion sounds great in theory. Writers are writing TONS directed TO medium offering suggestions etc but we are IGNORED.
It's just a dumpster fire and I cannot understand why Medium can't see it's sinking its own ship. I am one of the authentic and veteran writers whose work used to be boosted nearly every time and my earnings were generally in the four figure range. But now, there's no curation, no distribution, certainly no boosts, miniscule views, and I'll be lucky to get $50 this month. So I'm bailing, like almost every other good writer. This has got to be a disastrous business decision. As for the pub owners who are sucking up--I have no respect and don't waste any energy there, either.
Thanks Conni, you are not alone. Hundreds of writers, if not thousands, whose stories were boosted and even selected for staff picks in my pub Health and Science and Illumination-Curated now get a handful views from direct links as their stupid system flags them as spam while allowing real spam to take the center stage. I am very sorry this happened to you too and wish you the best in your journey. Take care.
This frustrates me as a writer who is authentic and passionate about telling stories about my life and my challenges. Six months ago I would have never thought I would be getting cents. One of my stories was published in Illumination, it shows no earnings though I know people are reading it. Very disheartened and hoping for it all to be resolved soon
Here's the link to that story:
https://medium.com/illumination/the-broken-promise-a18bbb71d7f8
You’ve got to think like a spammer. If writers can’t publish more than fifteen stories a day - and I can think of some legitimate reasons why they would - but editors can, then the obvious solution is to launch a publication and as an editor publish a tonne of stories.
Medium seems not to want to actually read what they are publishing.
Even if they did, AI in skilful hands can produce staggeringly complex and subtle stories, beautifully written. I have seen several recently that no human reader is going to pick as AI and indeed, manages to fool AI detectors.
I think Medium is becoming a casualty of AI and they aren’t in a position to climb out of the hole.
I can’t see why Medium would allow anyone - paying member or not - to publish 3 stories a day, let alone 15. If quality is to be encouraged over quantity, the solution is simple: restrict the pipe, so that writers (and even spammers) will have an incentive to only publish those pieces most likely to be read, rather than the “spray and pray” approach polluting the platform.
This makes no sense to me. In the last 3 months I only wrote two stories hardly and wonder how some people can write 15 stories a day and why. Why does Medium allow it and also restricts editor rights. They are the ones who clear the harmful content by reviewing, editing, or guiding writers. This sounds to me that Medium supports spammers unintentionally and penalizes editors. No wonder Medium became a spam place and writers lost income. I am not MPP so it does not bother me but I feel sorry for genuine writers whose stories I enjoy reading.
Most of those 15-stories-a-day people are not actually writing on their own. They're using ChatGPT or similar to churn out low quality stories, publishing them in bulk, and then using multiple accounts to clap for their own stories and generate views.
I agree that, by limiting editorial acceptances, Medium is unintentionally inhibiting editors when they should be focused more on restricting how many stories authors can publish.
Dr Broadly, thank you for unfolding this old, newly manufactured situation. On the one hand, Medium wants to prevent spam, which is a good thing, but on the other hand, they allow 15 stories to be published by writers and even 3 stories by non-member yet restrict editors from doing the cleaning process for the platform. It is contradictory, and Medium must solve this issue ASAP before it causes the boat to sink in your analogy. As Britni cleverly articulated, now some AI tools are hiding AI-written stories, and Medium boosts them because Copyleaks cannot detect them. This is very sophisticated, and Medium should stop using Copyleaks and invest in human eyes. I will articulate this complex situation in an upcoming newsletter as no one is talking about it, and Medium is not even aware of it.
In today's "The Medium Newsletter," Scott Lamb criticizes Mark Zuckerberg's decision to back away from "fact-checking" (censorship) on Meta/Facebook. I'm no Zuckerberg fan, but I applaud any move that supports free speech (what the Left calls "hate speech" because it hates dissenting views). Mr. Lamb's views don't surprise me. He's saying platform owners know best, so sit down and shut up. I think that's why Medium continues to shrug off any criticism of its recent algorithm changes.
It’s pretty odd and ironic to talk about Medium’s AI problem just to outsource the job of real podcasting to those two AI voices. I don’t mean this to be confrontational, but including these with your articles really hurts your credibility. You’re saying one thing and doing another.
Medium is nothing without us, We have to make our voices heard. Remember, there are other platforms. If we form a community we can get our stories read without Medium.
Brillant newsletter, Dr Broadly. There is such a lot going on we're not fully aware of. I think the membership hierarchy itself has inherent drawbacks, and there is scope for mind-bending. Such as saying how FOM will give 4 times more when it's not and writers thinking that upgrading to FOM will help them earn more. In my case it was less. Then those who can afford membership deliberately not wanting to, is taking advantage of the ecosystem by publishing ,and hence Medium benefit by allowing this more than allowing reads (which are strictly limited), thus increasing revenue from more memberships.
It's horrible to see Lawson Wallace belittled and bullied by snotty writers who think it's ok and get away with these bullying tactics. I had this inadvertedly myself before Xmas, as I was an editor in a publication, where 'something' happened that looked like an innocent editor had plagiarised a writer's work for profit. The condemnation by these writers, and threats to expose the 'editor' were supported by many comments on their stories, which at that stage, earned a good bit. At the same time, I did a test and published a story and later amended it, and it showed that whatever happened could've very realistically have happened after the stories were published, not before. And another editor revealed the exact same thing happened in a publication she was editing.
Eventually, the writers backed down, admitting it was likely a glitch (after making money from their stories), but never apologised. Editors shouldn't have to face this kind of abuse. The thing that concerned me most was how easily other writers left comments which clearly involved a complete lack of critical thinking, siding with these writers, who had big audiences and were very popular. As an editor it made me feel insignificant and small.
It's not just this incident, I think there are so many flaws with Medium's ecosystem, that have led to great discrimination and bias, now affecting everyone. At the end of the day, it shows we're all equal human beings deserving of respect. I feel that Medium has been corrupt for some time and it's all coming out now. I think they're trying to hold it together and present a positive image, and trying to attract certain types of writers, such as academics and students. Little do those writers know their hard work will earn 0.01 or 0.02. They even have an 'open day' planned soon purely for academic writers.
Im sorry, why do both speakers here sound like AI? I may be wrong but they must be 2 people with perfect vocie overs and would want to see a video of them talking.
Very good article. Thanks for showing the true about Medium.
Medium today is just an echo chamber.
Mediocrity defined.
People with an axe to grind have the largest followings. Quality of content is not important, quantity of popular junk wins the day.
Thanks a lot. I'm a bit confused by the podcast system on substack. I don't know who is talking on the podcast. They are referring to Dr Mike Briadly but his same is under the title as if he is the author of the podcast. Could someone explain who is talking please?
There is NO shortage of writers speaking up. Medium is NOT listening!
The Medium Partner Program is fucked. The idea of members collaborating on anything on Medium is actually the WORST idea bc that exact thing is why writers are being penalized for supporting a certain group of readers/subscribers. We are accused to having a “ring” and excluding all others writers.
AND transparency is NOT a trait on Medium at all. Their staff picks and Newsletter don’t address any of the real problems we writers are having.
This discussion sounds great in theory. Writers are writing TONS directed TO medium offering suggestions etc but we are IGNORED.
Sad but true.