Should Medium Get Out of Editorial?

And what the answer means for writers and subscribers

I’m one of those writers who doesn’t want to make a living directly from my writing—I just want it to reach an audience. For years, Medium seemed to connect my writing to audiences more effectively than any platform in history. I built a thriving consulting business in large part because clients connected with my ideas here.

But then there was a drop-off. Not only in views, but in the feeling that Medium was a direct, growing connection to other people.

It’s not just the paywall, though that was certainly part of the decline for writers like me. Yes, you can publish outside of it, but Medium has made it clear that non-paywall posts will not bask in its distribution love.

The bigger reason Medium no longer seems to work as well for most writers is what Siobhan touts here: Medium’s investment in its own editorial.

I used to tell people who didn’t know Medium that it was Twitter but for blog posts. Of course, that’s no longer accurate: with the paywall and the self-produced editorial, it’s really Netflix for writing.

Like Netflix, Medium gives its own content top billing, leaving a smaller piece of the distribution pie for other stuff. Especially stuff that a reasonable human editor might pass on, like my own posts on the structure of a great sales pitch (1.1M views, plus another 1.5M on other platforms) , or the length of Japanese intestines (33K views).

Earlier in my career, I did make a living from my writing, and unlike most writers, I loved pitching ideas. I was good at it: I sold stories to newspapers and mags —NY Times, Wired, Gourmet, Inc., Fast Company, Women’s Health (my mom: “What do you know about women’s health?”) —and to radio programs like All Things Considered and This American Life.

But what was so great about Medium, when I first discovered it, was that it did away with all of that. Instead of human editors making the call, you just published your story and waited to see if readers liked it.

It could have stayed that way—even with a paywall. But Medium decided that the best way to “put terrific stories in front of our readers” was for its own editors to decide what’s terrific. Yes, Netflix does that too, but great TV requires great investment. I’m not sure that great writing does.

The upshot is that, more and more, to find an audience on Medium, a writer must first impress a human editor. I’ll keep posting stuff here (cause why not), but I’m mourning the days when it was otherwise.

More importantly for Medium, I think readers are mourning too. Human editors are great for traditional publications, but in relying on them, Medium reads more and more like those publications (albeit with a cooler UI). The weird, beautiful surprises are rarer, as are the chances to connect with millions of readers.