Medium Announces New Look, New Way to Pay Writers

Look away for a moment and something changes at Medium, Ev Williams’ hot writing and reading startup platform.

This week, Medium rolled out a new look and a new way to pay writers, two long-time wants from its outspoken and articulate community.

I wrote a detailed analysis of Medium’s new logo here (Medium’s head of design commented on it). However, the rest of this column is going to focus on the new compensation system and what it means.

The “Medium Partner Program“, the initiative to compensate writers, is amorphous.

First, in March of this year, it was invite-only. Writers submitted story pitches and the editorial team at Medium selected content for its private membership. These writers were paid industry rates.

This seemed to be Medium’s best foot forward to pay writers. Although it was hardly scalable and made Medium look more like a publication than a platform.

Then, the announcement yesterday swung the pendulum back in the opposite direction.

The partner program fundamentally changed from Medium-funded writers to member-funded writers. This democratization re-balanced Medium “the publication” to Medium “the platform.”

“We strongly believe that quality content needs to be paid for by consumers — not advertisers — so creators can do their best work, and to align the incentives of everyone involved.” – from Medium’s announcement, Expanding the Medium Partner Program

Today, the aperture of the funnel of Medium writers eligible for compensation has widened. Before, a small percentage of invite-only writers were paid only if Medium editors chose their content for its members. Few people were paid a lot. Now, all invite-only writers are paid directly by members. Many people will be paid a little. Medium, as a curatorial middleman, is cut out. And this is where it gets interesting.

Members “pay” writers with their virtual “applause.”

A few weeks ago, Medium rolled out “Claps” as a replacement of “recommends.” Recommends are a binary system of approval or ignoring. The new clap mechanism adds a dimension of grade, where readers can clap once or up to 50 times. Katie Zhu, spokesperson for Medium, explained why “recommends” were inadequate.

“Explicit feedback is the most valuable signal, both for authors and the Medium system. But a simple, binary vote has its limitations. It shows you how many people thought something was good, not how good was it?”

Claps confused people at first.

Dharmesh Shah, founder of Hubspot, wrote a response to the change on Medium entitled Hey Medium, Is 3 Claps A Compliment? in which he said, “I honestly don’t understand the motivation of this whole clap thing.”

“The single Recommend has been replaced by 50 Claps so, mathematically speaking, 3 Claps represents 6% of the former value of a Recommend,” responded another unimpressed Medium user to Dharmesh’s question.

Medium took heat during these 12 days between the release of Claps and the release of the new expanded Medium Partner Program.

But now, things are starting to come into focus.

The Claps system seems to justify the new payment system. Claps unlock a whole new, albeit strange, economy.

It’s too early to tell exactly how much money a writer will be paid for say 10 member claps versus 45 member claps. But now the biggest chunk of Medium writers yet are faced with a choice every time they open a window to write a new story:

• Write for all of Medium and receive no money.
• Write for Medium members and get paid.

This brings us to one of the biggest career conundrums for writers. Do I write for compensation or exposure? Publicity can lead to bigger and better opportunities, but compensation puts food on the table.

Medium’s viewing this as a “grand experiment” but what should the rest of us think?

Ev Williams hasn’t directly spoken about the changes (yet), but he made several highlights on one Medium writer’s post, Partners: How Medium can Become the Netflix of Blogging.

In the article, the writer describes the direction in which Medium seems to be headed.

“More paid subscribers = more money for writers = better content = more paid subscribers.”

If this happens, and that is an enormous “if”, then Medium may or may not have found a key to unlock the solution to the problem with content publishing. The solution involves no ads and no subscriptions. Instead, readers pay their favorite writers to do what they love. A self-replenishing economy where incentives are aligned. All the while Ev stands by, with his arms crossed, and a smug, satisfied smile spread across his face.

As we’ve done before in the past when Medium announces something half-baked, we’ll grab the popcorn and soda and watch what happens.