Does Medium work?

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

No week would be complete without writing some article about Medium and how the algorithm works and whatever. I’m taking another tack, because I haven’t found an answer to my question yet.

For one thing, nobody can figure out how Medium calculates our payment. Claps are redundant after a single clap per reader, but if they were meaningless, we wouldn't get those notifications. The individual claps add up, they’re cumulative, I think.

Then we have reads, views, highlights and all that. The system is biased in favor of certain topics, and that probably won’t change. Th editors like what they like, full stop.

Now the big question.

A tontine is an insurance pool, a collection of funds made by individuals. They receive interest payments monthly, or annually, as per the terms. Once an individual dies, the remaining partners get interest increased according to their agreement. The last remaining member picks up the whole package.

Medium resembles a tontine more than it does a normal business plan because we the writers are the main, maybe sole source of revenue, and I call any member, even if they only read, a member, because they pay the five bucks per month just like I do.

I don’t know of any other significant source of income for Medium. There are no ads on member pages, and links aren’t the same, because you have to click to access them. They don’t come automatically, like on You Tube. And if you opt out of You Tube ads, you pay for that privilege.

Plus, You tube is three orders of magnitude bigger than Medium, having two billion monthly visitors, compared to Mediums million or so. On top of that, YTs terms are clear. Create a sub-platform, or channel, and you can make money, based on view time. Yes, YT takes its cut, because they own the place. But the money comes from an outside source, and it’s enormous. It isn’t bound by the lousy five bucks per month shelled out by members. In effect, we’re all fighting for a few crumbs of a very finite pie.

Photo by Elena Sambros on Unsplash

Like a tontine, in that way.

Better yet.

Will Medium last?

Photo by Martin López on Unsplash

Cheers.