Member-only story
I Don’t Think I Can Grow on Medium Anymore
What am I still doing here?
I’m on track to make less money than I have made since my 2nd or 3rd month here this month.
I have been here a little over a year and a half now, and how have things changed, mostly not for the better in my personal experience. I have attempted to grow an audience and made writer friends. Some sadly have left Medium like the sinking ship it has felt like for many of us for a while now.
I feel like the bare minimum is all I ask here. It used to be if I read a few stories, around half of them would garner a reciprocal read. I was more than happy with that. Especially with new (to me) writers who I appreciated might not be familiar with me.
This was a big part of how I grew an audience here, back when people made an effort. Now, I get new followers every day, sure, but do they read me? Do they heck. Do people really expect a follow back for no reason? I could give a crap about followers who don’t read, sorry.
A couple of months after I joined in July 2021, Medium changed the rules so that writers needed 100 followers to join the Partner Program. I feel this set things on the wrong path. The follow for follow game became a tag, a rampant trend, and most of these people never learned what (once upon a time) made the site great for newbies in the…
