Why are some writers abandoning Medium?

Before I begin to describe why the simplest and most straightforward answer is: all for money, they are leaving Medium because they wanted Medium to be the way they wanted it to be.

Some are probably going to be upset with me for writing this story, some are not going to like it and are just going to hate this story, but I’m just going to clarify what’s going on with the writers who are leaving Medium.

Why are writers abandoning Medium?

Before I started writing on Medium, I read a story by an Indian, who said why he was leaving Medium. In the story, he showed a series of prints with bill payments as a Medium member, and was outraged, because Medium did not accept paying members in India, but they charged Medium members in India. That was the only reason he was leaving Medium.

With this intervention, knowing that in my country Stripe was also not available, so I decided to investigate further, that’s when I read about 11 stories from different writers, giving up Medium. And all of these eleven stories, the only reason was that Medium had stopped using the old method of sponsoring stories with ads, and some because Medium removed the claps as a method of earnings.

None of the writers gave a different reason, for example, I want to focus on my own blog, or I got a job that pays better than Medium, or else I have little time to write on Medium, so I’m retiring. Or maybe I won the lottery I became a millionaire I don’t need Medium anymore, not even to tell a story how I did it. Everyone was complaining about money, and I just can’t leave their stories here, as it is not a polite act.

And why are they doing this?

That was exactly the part I wanted to talk to you about so much.

In addition to being a freelancer and digital entrepreneur, I am a trader, and in the stock market, it has an expression that many traders call trader addiction. The trader addict is one who as soon as he starts to win, he wants more, and when he starts to earn more, the more he bets on the stock market to earn more, and when he loses, he is completely disillusioned. Only he didn’t control his psychological pulse.

Everyone likes to make money. But for some people, particularly traders addicted to the stock market, it’s not just a natural will, it’s an adrenaline rush. And, like most adrenaline junkies, once will never be enough. Nothing against the writers who decided to leave; but for some, the changes that were made to Medium, lowered their income, and that made them tired of earning little.

I myself have a friend who writes here on Medium, at the time when clapping was the method used to pay writers, he earned between $4300 to $5127 monthly, now that Medium has changed the earning guidelines, he earns around $2898.12, half of what he earned, and he has over 30 thousand followers on Medium.

So these changes in Medium, are making many writers who earn a lot, thinking about leaving, all because they cut their allowance.

For me, from my point of view. With only $5 monthly or $50 per year, and earning more than $2500 monthly even though I was a top earner of $9000 or $12000, I wouldn’t have to be upset, even because I know many platforms that pay online, and between all of them, Medium is the least effort to create content, in the end, to earn a value of 5 digits, with a measly $5 monthly or $50 annually to pay the package as a member.

As Tom says, I am happy to pay my $5 monthly or $50 a year to make Medium grow more and more. And worse is that some who are indignant with Medium, are unpaid members, look how absurd.

I had a YouTube channel, with more than 110 thousand subscribers and more than 10 million views and in 5 years, I earned only $1637.43. And there are people here on Medium, with a thousand followers, with a cured history, they earn more than $3279. This means that Medium does not compare with many platforms that are spread around, even though those platforms have paid millions of dollars to their creators.

A new example from YouTube, they pay for CPM, a type of gain per thousand clicks, where people can earn $1 per thousand views, depending on where these views come from, varying only up to $10. On Medium, with 71 readings, I earn over $2, can you imagine with a thousand readings?

What is my advice for those who also want to give up Medium?

Nobody can send the ideas of others, each one has his thoughts and his projects, for those who want to give up Medium, all because the earnings have fallen, I say this: you are the one who knows, but never ignore a $0.01, because it belongs to you, and I read a story last week by a writer, which said the following, ¨the day I found out I was a writer, ¨ the picture covering the story is a payment for the month of November 2019, and they were nothing more than $0.01.

Some found out that they were Medium writers when with their stories they earned the first payment, about $500, and this writer, was happy to write on Medium, for having earned $0.01. it made me understand that no matter how much you earn, as long as you are your own boss, work hard, that you will soon get far.

We all know that work should be valued, but I have never seen a platform, which values the work of a creator as much as Medium, maybe Spotify is allocating itself to that. However, before the music stops on Spotify, it is already in the pirated market, so Medium still wins.

Medium is an incredible platform, and many just like me, love it and bond with it.