Member-only story
Hello Medium
Medium used to make me jealous and frantic to publish quantity over quality — I became my own worst enemy
It’s true.
Medium pays less than it used to.
There was a time when a handful of writers made enormous (mind-blowing) amounts of money.
There was also a time when “average” writers (like myself) could easily make a couple hundred dollars a month — frequently making ten or fifteen dollars on articles with relatively few reads, comments, or engagement.
Some months it honestly felt like easy money.
I’m not entirely sure what happened.
A few possibilities: Medium lost subscribers. Too many subscribers were made to believe writing is something anyone can do and get paid. Medium got greedy and simply wanted to pocket a larger percentage of the revenue. Medium stopped growing and investors lost interest?
Between 2021 to late 2022, Medium had become inundated with articles like, “I made $20,000 on one article….and you can too!,” kind of clickbait.
Some did make $20,000 on one article….but that kind of uneven, algorithmic, distribution of money is not a sustainable business model, particularly within a paid subscription model-only paradigm.
