The Only Online Platform that Appreciates Educated Discourse

If you are teaching a writing class, you have an obligation to tell your students about Medium

Hey everybody!

There’s a lot going on so let’s just get right into it. Last week, Medium launched a new “Friends of Medium” tier. The normal membership is $50 annually and the friends membership is $150. You can read all the details here.

As for me, I’d just gotten the notification that this was available, and I immediately got up to sign up. In fact, I’d just laid down for a quick nap. Yes, I gave up on a nap to go spend an extra $100! That’s how strongly I felt about getting in on this new program.

The way I see it, the friend tier allows a mechanism so that people can pledge further support to Medium without driving away people who can’t afford to pay more than $50 per year. Incidentally, I always thought the $50 fee was too low, but the folks at Medium likely know more than I do (or at least they have access to more information).

In high school, we played something called the Lemonade Stand game. This was the early days of computers and there was this game that allowed you to set prices for lemonade and hot dogs while navigating supply costs. The point of the game was to teach you that you couldn’t set the price of your lemonade at $1,000,000 a cup because you wouldn’t sell any and you’d go broke. Also, you don’t make any money if you sell your lemonade for one cent over supply price. I always lost at this game.

I’ve been surprised to read some of the grumbling responses to the friend tier. Apparently, there’s skepticism that this isn’t going to be as great as advertised. That response should be expected, after all everything else in capitalism revolves around lying, cheating, and stealing in order to get ahead.

I can only speak for myself, and based on my experience with Medium, the platform deserves a giant pat on the back.

Last week, I wrote an article about how toxic social media is because it appears to deliberately promote hate ideology and bury any writing that is concerned with human decency. Medium is the only platform out there using human curators (Boost program), and even though they’re the first to admit it’s not a perfect program, it’s really leaps and bounds ahead of anything else that’s available.

That article received a boost that completely surprised me. In fact, I had two in a row last week which was a nice way to end a very solid month.

One article that didn’t get boosted was my comment on how it’s an example of poverty shaming to say, “I don’t write for money.” That’s been a very polarizing article with some readers profusely thanking me and other telling me how strongly they disagree.

One guy tracked me down on Ko-Fi to give me a $100 tip to prove he didn’t write for money. I told him that was a good start, but I wouldn’t believe him until he made that a monthly pledge (I’m kidding, I thanked him profusely and I feel sincerely grateful).

Articles that generate both extremely hostile and extremely thankful responses are an indication that I’ve tapped into an important issue. I’m left wondering if there’s some aspect to this that I don’t understand.

If I say, “It can be hurtful to say you don’t write for money.”

And people respond, “But it hurts my feelings when you say my words hurt others!”

I’m left a little befuddled.

One case I do want to highlight are those kind people who always assume I’m criticizing them and who write me profuse apologies. “Dear Walter, I’m ashamed to admit I’ve put that phrase in my writing and I feel so terrible...”

Oh, you wonderful people. That’s not what I meant at all!

Another of the hazards of writing is that the people who need to hear something don’t listen, or assume you’re talking about somebody else. The people who are already mindful and wonderful are always on the lookout for ways they can be even better.

In some of my comments, I came across an example that I think provides clarity to the situation I wished to highlight. A few years ago, an NFL quarterback kept saying over and over and over that he “wasn’t playing for the money.” But a few months after he said that, he signed the most expensive contract in the history of the league.

As a result of that contract, the team was not able to resign critical members of his supporting cast, and the team limped on to a losing record.

When rich people say, “I don’t work for money,” it can be really irritating, particularly when everyone around them is out of a job.

I see similar things happen too often in the writing world. Writers of privilege say they “aren’t working for money” but then they gobble up all the resources for themselves. I’d included a link to my Ko-Fi account as kind of a joke. “If you don’t write for money, then send your earnings to support me!”

Then some guy sends me $100!

In a million years, I didn’t expect that to actually work. But every now and then human beings surprise you. Honestly, it’s not unfair to ask somebody who says, “I don’t write for money” to send all their earnings to you. If you keep any of the money you make from writing, then it’s not a truthful statement.

Oh, and finally, quite a few people were conflating “writing for money” with “writing to pay all my bills.” There’s a big difference. It’s always interesting how people will deliberately misinterpret your position in order to strengthen their arguments. I remember the first time I was paid $5 for a story. That’s just as much “writing for money” as it is to sign a six figure contract.

All writers aspire to write something of value. If your work has value, it means you can sell it. Yes, money is something we don’t like to talk about, but like digestion, it’s a critical part of having a pleasant morning.

Lastly, I wanted to share a powerful story that I helped edit this month. This is a “Medium friend tier” link, so it should be available to all of you. This is a traumatic account of abuse at a very young age, so it might be triggering to some, but I found it inspiring.

The Nightmare That Freed Me From a Life of Abuse

Keep in mind that this style of story isn’t quite aligned with what Medium is looking for right now. It’s a little too long and maybe just a bit too intense. However, I think stories like this and having a place to share them might be the thing that separates Medium from the pack.

In Linda Caroll’s response to the new Medium tier, she noted that Medium is not yet profitable, but is trending in the right direction. I’ve been on the platform for years, and I didn’t realize it wasn’t profitable. That was a sobering thing to learn.

I’ve been on the other side of this where I’ve owned a business and everyone assumed you were rolling in money even though you were struggling. I feel really strongly about what Medium is doing, and I think anyone who appreciates having a place where writers can share quality stories and actually have the hope of being fairly compensated needs to help the platform.

Signing up for the friend tier is one thing, but beyond that we should try and spread the word about the benefits of the Medium community. It seems to me that every creative writing, or English literature professor for that matter, should be encouraging students to sign up. After all, not every writer has a cushy teaching job. Some of them, “need the money” (especially students).

From what I can see, Medium is the one legitimate platform on the internet that encourages respectful, educated discourse.

It’s the first step in the direction our digital reality needs to go. If Medium disappears, I shudder to think of what might happen to civilization (I’m serious).