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One of the great things about writing on Medium is its search engine optimization (SEO, for short). Or at least, it was.
This article isn't about the merits of SEO marketing, though.
Throughout most of Medium's existence, one of the platform's greatest draws has been the way its articles can be found through searches on Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and other browsers. But with Medium's latest update, they've quietly done away with the ability for any of our articles to actually be read in this way. People who click on them will be told to make a free account — which, even then doesn't allow them to read any of the stories of the site's paid authors.
This strategy is an enormous shift, and it's one I'm surprised that I haven't yet found being discussed, either by Medium staff or any of its members. The approach marks a stark change from the one that the all-inclusive community for writers had always taken in the past.
Last year, I published an article called "Lucid Dreams Vs. Vivid Dreams," that, up until this August, was being found primarily through google searches. For months, anyone who Googled the question "What's the difference between lucid dreaming and vivid dreaming?" would see my article as the second result.
Though the reads for this article were coming almost exclusively from non-members, it still meant more people were reading my work. I had increased publicity and a means of bringing new members into the platform. This openness was the very reason I discovered Medium to begin with.
And while for this past year it's been a little frustrating not to be paid for any of my articles that were being found through external sources — as the income stream here is generated exclusively by paying members — I was thankful still for the success of the article and the additional eyes it was receiving. The referred members system had its flaws, but it was still a means of being paid for the new readers and writers we were bringing into the community.
My article about lucid dreaming is my second most read article to date— with a view count exceeding seven out of eight of the articles I've had selected for Boosts. "Artificial Intelligence, Pornography and a Brave New World" is my most successful article on Medium, with over 121,000 views — almost 20,000 of which were from external viewers. For "Lucid Dreams Vs. Vivid Dreams," my views came from 97% external viewers. Between the two articles, I brought in numerous new members.
But with Medium's new changes, absolutely every stranger who chances onto any of our articles outside of Medium will be unable to read them. This insidious transition is one that impacts every writer and reader.
To make matters worse, all of our articles can still be found externally; they just can't be read. Anyone who opens them will promptly be paywalled. The only real recourse we have for preventing this with our articles is to turn off our ability to be paid for them. We can personally give out friend links for a select few to read the article, but these friend links can only be given out to wider audiences under select circumstances.
This latest change is probably one of the most significant that Medium has ever undergone. With the quiet removal of free non-member reads, the site's broader focus has shifted more toward reciprocity. Now, members can no longer be paid for the new members they bring to the platform, no matter in what numbers. Following the mistakes of other social media giants, a writer's pay will be based strictly on the engagement received.
The stated goal of this change is to deliver higher quality stories to readers, but the notion that the quality of stories is even loosely determined by the number of claps, highlights, and comments they receive is misguided at best. The success of an article is almost completely irrelevant to its worth, and it's baffling to think Medium wouldn't have learned that lesson through the failures of its competitors.
The complementary decision to remove external readers from the equation almost entirely is perplexing. Why staff has been so silent on this shift I can only imagine is because of how loud the objections would be if more writers were aware of it. I can't help but see something nefarious in the way Medium implemented such a colossal change to the fundamental inclusivity of the platform without so much as a mention.
Pay on Medium should be based on little else besides the value of the work on display, and among the clearest indicators of that value is whether the work is good enough to inspire new readers to buy memberships. But if those readers can't make it through the first few paragraphs of even a single article without being paywalled, how could they know whether or not joining Medium is worth it?
I joined Medium largely because of an article I read that went viral around the beginning of the pandemic. It was a piece written by Julio Vincent Gambuto called "Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting," and it was read by 21 million people in 98 different countries, according to The Medium Blog's Jon Gluck. Finishing the article, the words resonated with me so deeply that I knew I wanted to write on Medium myself. Gambuto's success story is one that Medium has taken rightful pride in telling.
But under Medium's new policy, I would have never have been able to read his article at all. An incalculable number of new writers and readers would have never have joined Medium.
If by some chance the article still ended up in my news feed on that fateful day during early lockdown, I would have clicked on it, read a couple of paragraphs into it, gotten paywalled, exited out, and never thought about the article again. More than that, I would have left with a distaste for Medium instead of a reason to join it.
As it happened, though, I was able to read through the article in its entirety (more than once) and realize I'd found a potential home in the Medium community. Still, it took a little while before I committed to building up my little corner here. But now that I've begun to, I'm deeply discouraged by the way that Medium has suddenly closed off every monetized article to the world at large. Now, even if I write the next "Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting," the world won't find it unless I refuse to be paid for it. It's an outrageous sacrifice to have to make, and I'm surprised more writers aren't outraged to be confronted with it.
At a time when Medium is growing faster than ever, according to its CEO Tony Stubblebine, this new change appears to be slamming the door shut on masses of prospective new members rather than holding it open for them. The difference of 3 free reads may not seem huge, but without them, I'm not sure I would have ever joined Medium at all.