Medium vs. Vocal
Five months ago, I started writing on Medium. I had the idea to share thoughts and experiences, and I was even more excited to know that Medium was willing to reward the effort with its Partnership program.
During that time, I wrote about 30 articles (in English and Spanish), which barely made me $5. Seriously, I got $5 for 30 articles... That's even less than what a freelance writer from Pakistan or Bangladesh makes on Fiverr.
I know the idea of membership is not exactly that you make more money as a writer just for being a member (the vast majority of writers on Medium make $100 or less a month, but it's more common to make less).
Cons of being a Digital Nomad
Anyway, I expected to get better results in 5 months than I actually got as a paying member, especially when I compare Medium's system with other monetization options for bloggers like AdSense.
Ok, Medium does not show you ads and AdSense ARE ads, but I think they should improve their monetization system because the content on Medium is of great quality and clearly someone is taking more than half the pie.
What kind of content did I post on Medium?
From personal stories about being an entrepreneur, to letters to my deceased father, poems and short essays on spirituality.
Law of attraction
I took the advice of the "gurus" and looked for publications with a wide scope, but I don't think I have achieved better results than I would have obtained writing for smaller publications.
I have no complaints about the publications, after all they are managed by Medium members (members who pay $5 a month, so they basically pay to make Medium's life easier).
In fact, I have seen publishers very committed to disseminating content on networks outside of Medium, and frankly I think they do more than Medium does to promote you as an author.
Actually, Medium does pretty well promoting THEIR PUBLICATIONS on Twitter, but only occasionally they share the articles of authors who are not editors or writers in those publications. Elemental, for example, IS a Medium publication.
Have no friends
Medium seems like the new Facebook for me... And that's awful
One would hope that a company like Medium would have something better to offer than curating your article if they consider it complies with the editorial guide.
Their editorial guide is not difficult to follow, the difficult thing is that one of the Medium editors find your article using an algorithm that does not even seem to work in your favor when you have few followers.
Benefits of being a digital nomad
I would like to have another opinion, but I don't see how Medium is different from any social network. Instead of "Likes" there are Claps, and by the way, I think it is a terrible idea to make people see how many claps you have.
It is a form of informational bias (same as in all social networks) and it makes the essential purpose of a writing / reading platform a bit lost.
Female masturbation
I mean, do the folks at Medium know how many brilliant writers came out of dusty towns without the world having a clue who they were? Gabriel Garcia Marquez was one of them, and if he had depended on "likes" or "claps" he might not have become anyone.
More information:- https://vocal.media/journal/why-i-left-medium-and-moved-to-vocal