Andrew, rant welcomed. 🙏🏻 What frustrates me about Medium from Day One (for me) is the absolute dedication management has to opacity in data, pay structure,... and the actual purpose of publications. Are they trying to be magazines? Are they trying to use editors to establish a "higher quality of writing" than the other platforms? I can guess all day, but if Medium once explained their strategy in plain English, I'd have something to go on. I think Medium has truly great potential, they could be a real community platform that the community would rally around, be loyal to, and fight for, but they insist on keeping us in the dark, fed partial scraps after the fact, wondering when our plans for Medium will be thrashed and churned up once more. They went through a very tight financial step last year (this year?) and should now be more independent, but their behaviour hasn't changed at all.
I'm happy to hear the rant is welcomed. I hesitated to publish this one. But the whole idea of this publication is a space to share my raw unfiltered writing. I've been to enough Medium events to get a good sense of what they are trying to do with their publication and editors and the pay structure. I like the "why" but I'm not sold on the "how." And, as you note, the opacity is a big problem. What differentiates them, nobody knows. I think this is even more important for readers than for writers. Members simply don't know what it is they're paying for.
I complain without going to any events 🙂 maybe that's a subject to write about? I would really like to know more. Having an editor influencing my schedule, asking for changes, just doesn't appeal, and I certainly don't want to do that for/to others. No doubt that affects who sees my work but what can one do?
I used to teach and tell stories before being asked to give a TEDx talk. That process was a huge pain in the ass, but, it taught me how to give a tight, 18 minute presentation with little to no words on slides. It transformed how I present.
There's learning to play instruments on our own. And then learning to play classical music with a pain in my ass teacher.
It's not necessarily fun. It's hard to ignore that the pain in the ass process of getting published (in a good, quality publications with editors who really care) has made me a better writer. And ... a validated human writer for being vetted through a publication.
I think where this really matters is for readers who are looking for high quality, genre specific, human written works. That's the Medium value prop, in my mind. They don't communicate it, or manage it, nor fully deliver on it.
Andrew, rant welcomed. 🙏🏻 What frustrates me about Medium from Day One (for me) is the absolute dedication management has to opacity in data, pay structure,... and the actual purpose of publications. Are they trying to be magazines? Are they trying to use editors to establish a "higher quality of writing" than the other platforms? I can guess all day, but if Medium once explained their strategy in plain English, I'd have something to go on. I think Medium has truly great potential, they could be a real community platform that the community would rally around, be loyal to, and fight for, but they insist on keeping us in the dark, fed partial scraps after the fact, wondering when our plans for Medium will be thrashed and churned up once more. They went through a very tight financial step last year (this year?) and should now be more independent, but their behaviour hasn't changed at all.
I'm happy to hear the rant is welcomed. I hesitated to publish this one. But the whole idea of this publication is a space to share my raw unfiltered writing. I've been to enough Medium events to get a good sense of what they are trying to do with their publication and editors and the pay structure. I like the "why" but I'm not sold on the "how." And, as you note, the opacity is a big problem. What differentiates them, nobody knows. I think this is even more important for readers than for writers. Members simply don't know what it is they're paying for.
I complain without going to any events 🙂 maybe that's a subject to write about? I would really like to know more. Having an editor influencing my schedule, asking for changes, just doesn't appeal, and I certainly don't want to do that for/to others. No doubt that affects who sees my work but what can one do?
I used to teach and tell stories before being asked to give a TEDx talk. That process was a huge pain in the ass, but, it taught me how to give a tight, 18 minute presentation with little to no words on slides. It transformed how I present.
There's learning to play instruments on our own. And then learning to play classical music with a pain in my ass teacher.
It's not necessarily fun. It's hard to ignore that the pain in the ass process of getting published (in a good, quality publications with editors who really care) has made me a better writer. And ... a validated human writer for being vetted through a publication.
I think where this really matters is for readers who are looking for high quality, genre specific, human written works. That's the Medium value prop, in my mind. They don't communicate it, or manage it, nor fully deliver on it.
Those are great points. You know, it never occurred to me to think of pubs as filters of human and AI work. There is such a mix out there.