Medium is useless for writers

Yesterday when I joked that Substack was a just replay of Medium…

I had no idea the CEO of Medium, Ev Williams would read my tweet and step down from his post. ๐Ÿ˜ƒ

The tech industry sees this move as a signal that Medium is sideways and maybe in decline.

This nugget stuck out to me:

…it largely was not high-quality journalism that was leading readers to subscribe: it was random stories posted to the platform by independent writers that happened to get featured by the Google or Facebook algorithms.”

Casey Newton, “How Medium Got Stuck in the Middle”

The big promise of Medium was that it gave high quality pushers more than content management. Medium was supposed to supply distribution, and an audience of readers and subscribers.

Since that is a farce, I recommend that all writers, especially independent Black voices should own their own website and publish themselves.

If you need help with setting that up, including subscriptions and memberships, let me know.