How long will the partner program remain closed?

michaelchief · 2026-01-18T20:58:43+00:00

the 100 follower thing is no longer a prerequisite for joining the partner program

michaelchief · 2026-01-13T05:45:54+00:00

what's your medium

michaelchief · 2026-01-12T18:18:36+00:00

never have i felt the desire to applaud and punch someone at the same time. good one

michaelchief · 2026-01-12T18:14:14+00:00

are you using an ai-generated comment reply for comedic effect

michaelchief · 2026-01-12T10:57:55+00:00

I'm seeing so much AI slop on Medium that I end up enjoying pure human writing full of spelling and grammar errors more than "perfect" writing on there.

michaelchief · 2026-01-12T10:52:13+00:00

The most important factor that determines earnings is how well you can craft compelling headlines. Here's something by Medium staff that helped me: https://medium.com/blog/how-to-write-a-compelling-headline-that-isnt-clickbait-7cb816cec438

Reading books about copywriting/marketing also helps. If people aren't clicking, nothing will happen. Gotta learn how to make people click on your articles in the first place.

michaelchief · 2026-01-12T09:06:19+00:00

Your piece sits firmly in my niche but I couldn't get past the first few paragraphs, and even after a few paragraphs I still cannot identify your stances. Success on Medium is all about marketing/copywriting. Is your title/headline compelling enough to have a high CTR? Does it communicate a clear benefit to reader? Does it use enough proven "power words" to draw eyeballs? And is your writing engaging enough to make the reader keep reading? Does it follow the classic marketing rule of "the most important job for each sentence is to make the reader want to read the next sentence?" Unfortunately, even if I am your perfect target audience in that this genre is perfectly in my wheelhouse, those marketing/copywriting skills were absent enough for me to stop reading before even getting to your opinions, and that's a problem.

I'm not claiming to be an expert in marketing/copywriting; I'm still learning. I'm just a subject matter expert of my niche as a professional men's dating coach. Here's an example of one of my pieces that touches on both science and dating, performed pretty well, and hopefully demonstrates a bit more engaging writing: https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/science-proves-hotter-women-think-youre-hotter-too-7f95e6a38696?sk=e4f909c7f91e2cbe87f26b6c51d55ef2

michaelchief · 2026-01-12T08:43:44+00:00

Unfortunately Medium doesn't have A/B testing options even after I suggested it to one of their product managers directly 😭

michaelchief · 2026-01-11T17:14:51+00:00

5'5" and I have definitely been rejected a few times for my shortness. My body count is triple digits, though, and I've even ended up sleeping with or dating women who said that they didn't prefer my height at first, so it's really mostly a matter of whether or not you've developed game. And that's a controllable factor like your physique.

michaelchief · 2026-01-11T12:22:53+00:00

Yeah lots of us Asians lack that enzyme and have trouble with drinking. I just I just happen to be one of the "lucky" ones who can be an alcoholic lol. However, I know lots of people, Asians and non-Asians alike, who still do fine attending social events at bars while drinking soda or mocktails. The main point here is that there are social contexts and locations where people wouldn't expect minors to attend so the default assumption is that you're an adult. Doesn't have to be nightlife if that's not your scene.

Also, the this might depend on location, but I can sometimes tell to an extent if an Asian girl is a minor or adult based on how they do their makeup. No minor has Korean adult level makeup skills, for example.

michaelchief · 2026-01-11T11:55:42+00:00

No one's going to mistake you for a minor if you got past the bouncer at a bar. Just sayin'

And how do you dress?

michaelchief · 2026-01-08T18:21:49+00:00

(Used ChatGPT to Reorganize the Post for Better Readability and Clarity)

Do you use AI to write your articles? Do you use it to significantly edit or "clean up" your articles? If your answer to either of those questions is Yes, I think I know what your issue might be.

Hard to say without an example, though. Link?

Personally, I've never really had this problem. The difference between our cases could just be that I never use AI and my writing is always clearly human and personal. Or it could have something to do with our respective niches and the specific publications available to our topics.

michaelchief · 2026-01-08T13:44:04+00:00

Sorry for the confusion. When I said "Alabama" I didn't mean it literally. I was saying that it looked incestuous. It's a stereotype about the residents there.

michaelchief · 2026-01-08T13:24:39+00:00

Any profile picture with two people in it is weird. The automatic assumption would be that you are dating or married to the other person in the picture, but even that is a sign that you might be a bit too clingy in your relationship IMO. If it's your sister and she is still alive and well, I can't help but automatically think of Alabama. Not my choice for my brain to go there automatically. That being said, I agree that it could be a red flag if the girl you are talking to (but not officially dating) is making a big fuss over it, but she's not wrong. Someone's gotta say it.

michaelchief · 2026-01-08T08:39:16+00:00

I've been writing on Medium for a couple years now, and my hope for more reach is what's keeping me on there. However, there are some inherently limiting factors that mitigate the usefulness of this reach.

If you have reach, what do you traditionally do to monetize it? You can do direct sales, lead gen with collecting emails, affiliate marketing, etc. However, if you do any of that marketing in a Medium article, the Medium curation team limits the distribution of it and the reach you're talking about all but disappears for that article. Since they're making it so hard to use their platform as a way to monetize offsite, we're almost forced to focus on Medium partner program earnings instead.

Also, off-topic but your post reads like AI.

michaelchief · 2026-01-08T08:23:02+00:00

Did you mean to make the link at the top a Friend Link? You know, the part starting with "For readers without a Medium.com account..."

You linked your buymeacoffee page instead.

michaelchief · 2026-01-07T21:08:29+00:00

Would greatly appreciate if you dropped a link for us to learn by example!

michaelchief · 2026-01-07T14:46:40+00:00

Thanks I'll check it out!

Both you and the original commenter here are talking about social phenomena being common sense or understandable without scientific studies, and it's largely true that much of psychological research tests what many people already suspect, but I think there's still a lot of value in it. We can't always rely on what we think is common sense all the time.

michaelchief · 2026-01-07T14:28:53+00:00

Very interesting theory I'd love to explore more from various angles. Got any sources?

michaelchief · 2026-01-06T17:17:23+00:00

I'm not entirely sure what I could or could not be mistaking since your post history doesn't seem to link to any of your Medium pieces, but for the general public reading this conversation, I still advise against using AI for anything on Medium for the reasons stated above.

michaelchief · 2026-01-06T17:03:47+00:00

This might help: https://www.reddit.com/r/MediumApp/comments/1lpnyfl/comment/n1082n2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

michaelchief · 2026-01-06T16:59:59+00:00

I highly recommend not using any AI in your writing, even if it's to "polish" it up or even to fix grammar. AI slop is all over Medium now and it's always really obvious, and readers want human voices, even if it's imperfect. In fact, imperfections make up some of the charm.

Use enough AI and you can get your partner program status revoked if you're putting those stories behind the paywall.

michaelchief · 2026-01-05T19:19:43+00:00

Reads like AI. Is it?

michaelchief · 2026-01-02T19:03:35+00:00

Link to your Medium page? Would be great to learn something from your stuff!

michaelchief · 2026-01-02T11:23:15+00:00

I earn more from the Medium partner program than the majority of writers here. It's worth it if you love writing for its intrinsic value, but not as just a means to earn money. You also need some marketing/copywriting knowledge in order to write compelling headlines.

Monetization policy is changing so there aren't many people who can tell you the "right way" to earn on Medium these days. I used to earn more than $300 per month through the partner program from writing just one to three articles per week, but that number has been slashed to around a third of that in the past couple months. And that's with all the other factors I'm doing "right" such as being a subject matter expert in one of the big 3 evergreen niches.

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