At 7 AM yesterday I received an email stating that Medium just published a new feature — tipping!
If you turn the feature on in the “Audience Development” tab in your Settings, you should start seeing this call-to-action underneath your articles:
What are my thoughts on this?
I Kinda Like It, Actually
Compared to the mind-blowing revenue opportunity of earning $2 monthly for referring 1 Medium member, this is actually pretty nice.
I make about $50 monthly from the Medium members I’ve referred, so, we’re not exactly rolling in the Benjamins over here.
One nice person could tip me $50 in one go, though.
Or $100. Or $200. I’ve seen people tip Dr. Disrespect thousands of dollars during his streams.
Here’s a few reasons I like this news.
It Uncaps Your Earning Potential
I know, you can make uncapped money with the Medium Partner Program, but that’s not true of the Medium referral program.
You can only make like $2.30 or something monthly for every referred member.
I like the fact that readers can write us a blank check if they desire with a tip.
The readers have more control. With the Partner Program, all members can do is read our stories and hope we get a few cents from them.
This feature gives readers incredible power to reward the writers they love the most as much as they want.
I Like The Symbolism Behind This More Than Anything
There’s something deeper at work here, though.
Every time Medium’s given us monetization tools in the past, they were always tied to enriching the pockets of Medium at the same time.
When we get paid on the Partner Program, Medium gets their payout, too.
It’s a revenue share.
Just like the referral bonuses we get for referring members.
However this setup does not enrich Medium at all.
In the history of Medium, they’ve pretty much always had their hand in the cookie jar, too, when it comes to paying writers.
They gave out bonuses last year which were nice, but other than that, their motivations for paying writers were always selfish as much as they were generous.
This move is not selfish at all.
It’s all generosity.
It feels different.
And for that reason I not only like this move, but have a little bit more faith in Medium moving forward.
I Do Not Think This Will Lead To Lots Of Earnings
Do I think this will lead to billions of dollars in earnings for us all?
No.
I don’t think it will make much difference to be honest.
However, this makes me believe that Medium IS headed in the right direction for the simple reason that they stand to gain nothing from this.
This new feature exists SOLELY to help support their writers.
And if this is a sign of things to come from Medium, sign me up.
I like it! Now they need to start incentivizing the old but brillant publication to come back.