Thoughts on the future of Medium

There’s been a lot of talk about Medium, their “freemium” model, and whether they will survive in the long term.

I seldom post on Medium. But when I do, it’s nearly always in support of my YouTube channel (largely for SEO purposes). And it’s very effective; the videos which have accompanying Medium articles tend to do significantly better than videos without.

I enjoy writing, but I’m not a very coherent writer. I write what comes to mind, which typically sounds much more like speech than an article or blog posts..

So, what about Medium?

Perhaps I’m in the minority, but I’m totally fine with Medium. I find that the quality of articles I find here are quite good, as is the overall article format, and the editing tools it provides to writers are excellent.

However, Medium has two problems for me:

1. The “freemium” model is a bit obnoxious
2. Article discovery is poor

Asking readers to subscribe to an article or blog service isn’t a new concept. Independent blogs have been doing this since forever. The difference is that Medium is a platform for bloggers and writers. This makes Medium a sort of competitor to bloggers whom already have a subscription service.

That being said, while the subscription model works for writers that don’t have their own subscription service, the way Medium constantly reminds readers to subscribe is a bit tiresome.

The other issue is around article discovery. I follow several Linux bloggers here on Medium. And you know what is never recommended to me? Articles about Linux.

Articles that are recommended to me are generally well written and all, but they aren’t what I’m looking for. I know there’s topics I’m interested in here on Medium, but they are never recommended to me. And yes, I’ve personalized my interests.

What about Egee on Medium?

I don’t use Medium enough to really care one way or another. I’m fine with Medium, and unless it goes totally pay-wall, I’ll be here for a while longer.

I have long-term plans to leave Medium and write articles via my website (probably with Ghost or even just Jekyll), but that won’t happen any time soon.

The main benefit I get from writing on Medium is their outstanding SEO. Medium articles are consistently at the top of Google search rankings. So when people search for “Best 3 Linux Distros”, they will probably see my article or my YouTube video.

tl;dr

I don’t really have much of an issue with Medium. Their subscription model is a bit annoying but it’s not a deal breaker (yet). And the poor article discovery is unfortunate but again, not a huge deal.

I’ll be on Medium for the foreseeable future. 🚀