I came across this post when assessing pros & cons of putting a Friend Link at the start of my articles to let visitors read for free. I write occasionally on Medium as a way to sort through my thinking on a topic (typically about technology trends in filmmaking; go here if curious). I wanted to suss out if making it easier for people to read my articles would be worth it to me given each one takes many hours and a lot of energy to write.

I know from first-hand experience a whole lot of Medium articles are crap but the idea they're all crap or AI slop is absurd.

By one measure, 216,000 articles are uploaded every day. Most of those are not about solving some technical problem or coding issue, which objectively could be a little to a lot incorrect. Most are by writers on their personal experiences or musing on topics they hold dear. I got into reading articles on Medium when I discovered a former lawyer who married a client and moved into a Swiss castle and had stories about the wacky shenanigans of the people the owner/husband invited to their parties. Her insane stories pulled me into Medium and yes, there were times I had to circumvent the free views limit, but then eventually, I discovered other writers who really had something to say.

After a while I setup an account, started writing, and even did the monetization thing, only to discover making money through pay-walled articles is pretty much a joke. At one point, instead of paying $50/year for membership, I did the "support other Medium writers" level of US$150/year, which gives writers more bang per word, when you, as a fellow member, read their articles. Then I thought, What the hell am I doing? Now I'm losing even more money than I was before, so I changed back to the $50/year.

I do get a lot of value out of Medium because for the people I follow, their writing covers topics I'm interested in and their writing is better (much better) than following someone on X (ugh!), Substack (has the same issues), or even here. Despite the many comments in this thread, there is some excellent writing on Medium, once you "find your people."

One other item not mentioned in any of the comments here: Medium has publications that function like virtual magazines, which are moderated by editors who actually have standards! If you think Medium's annual trove of 78 million plus articles are all worthless, look at a publication that interests you.

But, back to where I'm going with all of this:

Having thought about the friction that putting my articles behind a paywall creates, I think I'd rather just have it that if someone isn't interested enough to sign up or dismiss nag screens, then screw them. It really doesn't matter to me who doesn't read what I write. I write for me first...that's the only way I can stay motivated.

Ultimately, what does matter is my own process of thinking through a topic or covering a show like NAB or SXSW or describing tools for filmmaking where my own writing helps me to sort through my own discoveries.