Should You Still Write On Medium In 2024?

"Tom, should I still write on Medium?"

I got that question from a reader the other day. You know what my response was?

Sure!

It’s honestly a fine idea to write on Medium still.

What do you have to lose? You can republish what you write on Substack to Medium and maybe get boosted. It makes sense.

Whether you DO get boosted if your name’s not Barack Obama is a whole other story entirely, but maybe you will get boosted somehow.

So, go ahead.

Look, I’ve been very critical of Medium the last few months for very good reasons.

But the truth is, there’s still not a lot of options for long-form writers on the internet. So using all the tools at your disposal is important.

I disagree vehemently with Medium’s strategy the last few months.

I don’t think they’ll ever get back to their former glory where regular writers like you and I were making $300 - $3,000+ per month.

But treating it like a roulette wheel where the Medium gods might just bless you with a boost seems fair to me.

Is Medium Getting Better or Worse?

I’m at the point where it’s so hard to tell whether Medium’s actually improving or getting worse. I’ve heard different tales from different people and there seems to be no dominant consensus either way.

I’ll present this idea to you.. Just because Medium’s apparently gaining subscribers doesn’t mean it’s becoming a better place for you to write.

In fact, the average blogger is probably going to continue to get pushed to the side in favor of more journalistic pieces from the professionals.

Which means less opportunity for YOU.

One thing’s for sure: Medium’s looking for super long, super high quality articles from their writers.

I don’t have a problem with that per se..

The only problem I’ve had with Medium is that they’re not letting the market decide what they want. It’s all up to a mysterious body of “boosters” behind the scenes who decide what you want to read.

That same thinking led Medium to financial ruin a couple years back, when Ev had to layoff 1/3 of Medium’s workforce.

They were gaining subscribers back then, too, you know.

They just weren’t gaining enough of them to reach profitability.

The truth is, Medium is NOT for the average internet blogger anymore. It used to be, I think, back in the golden days of 2016-2017, but not anymore.

Anyway..

I just wanted to say that if you want to write on Medium, go ahead and do that.

I’m not going back because I don’t agree with how Medium’s running their platform. I don’t like the principle behind “we’re going to decide who gets seen and who doesn’t” very much. I don’t want to participate in an unfair marketplace.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t.

And that doesn’t mean you can’t find success on Medium either, by the way.

Apparently there’s people finding success there.

I also hear of many writers who had their views absolutely tank recently.

They own it. They can run their platform how they want to run it. And you can get involved in that setup if you want.

For me, though, I’m pretty happy right here on Substack.