I kept drifting away from using Medium as a writing platform, but something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on kept drawing me back. At last, I have finally discovered the reason behind this pendulum-like behaviour.
My Helter-Skelter Journey on Medium
Signing up
I first joined Medium on 13 March 2023. I had been running my own website for many years, concentrating on programming and website development. Then suddenly, I discovered that what I really wanted to do was write.
I needed to broaden my publishing base, so I tried Substack. I then realised that when I had been searching for topics on the Internet, articles published on Medium kept coming up. So, I decided to join Medium.
Friend of Medium
I signed up for ‘Friend of Medium’ on 2 December 2023. I was about to post an article titled Should I Cancel My Medium Membership when, out of the blue, an addition to Medium’s membership programme was announced — ‘Friend of Medium’. I decided to put the publication of this article on hold until I had researched this new membership level.
At first, I thought that there was no way the extra cost would be worth it, but other writers were reporting significant increases in earnings.
First Departures
I cancelled my Medium and ‘Friend of Medium’ subscriptions on 13 March 2024.
Friend of Medium
For me, the introduction of ‘Friend of Medium’ changed Medium’s atmosphere and made Medium even more like a social media platform. There seemed to be more emphasis on clapping, highlighting, commenting and scrolling for 30 seconds rather than writing and reading. After an initial surge of earnings when I joined FoM, they plummeted in February.
Medium Member
I could have stopped being a ‘Friend of Medium’ and remained a Medium member, but I was concerned that, with the introduction of ‘Friend of Medium’, ordinary members would get even less attention.
Medium had also made some changes that I didn’t like:
Stopped ‘Three Free Reads’ per month;
Removed the referral program and
Biased earnings towards subjects that weren’t covered by my writing.
First Rejoin
I rejoined the Medium membership program on 1 May 2024. This was because I felt that I had recovered from the fervour of ‘Friend of Medium’ and that the frenzy and behaviour caused by the introduction of ‘Friend of Medium’ had died down.
Second Departure
I unsubscribed for a second time on April 30, 2025, because I had never earned enough to pay my membership fees. I was lucky if a story earns $0.04 per read — this is because of a dilution effect caused by readers reading many stories.
Second Rejoin
I resubscribed to Medium for the second time on June 1, 2025.
So, Why Did I Rejoin for a Second Time?
I had decided not to publish any pay-walled stories while I was not a member, but it turned out that I didn’t publish any stories on Medium during this period!
I didn’t even publish any stories on my own website!
It’s not that I had writer’s block because I had plenty of ideas for stories.
I don’t want to be pressurised into churning out stories every day, but it does seem that I need some motivation — and that’s the reason I rejoined the membership program for a second time!
I hoped that my relationship with Medium would become more stable because I had discovered the root cause of the problem.
I also realised that, for me, it’s more important that my stories are read than that they make money.
Although earnings themselves are not important, I am still interested in the performance of my writing. So, I decided to restart producing and publishing Online Earnings and Results reports.
After publishing this report, Medium removed the paywall and sent me an email stating:
We appreciate your writing and contributions to Medium. However, we have detected that content on your account is in violation of our Medium-focused content policy, also known as Meta content.
Repeated violations of this policy may result in permanent ineligibility to participate in the Partner Program.
I believe that the reason for introducing this policy is that Medium Doesn’t Like You Writing About Medium.
Soon after receiving this newsletter, I cancelled my membership again.
Conclusion
Publishing on a platform is important for motivating my writing, but not at the cost of being censored.
I want to decide whether my stories are paywalled.
It is for this reason that I am increasing my Substack activity and publishing stories about Medium on Substack without a paywall.