Member-only story
Medium No Longer Thinks it Has to Pay Writers the “Cheese Tax”
The rules are always changing and writers always lose
There was an addictively cute video series doing the rounds during the Covid pandemic, set to an original internet tune someone came up with called the “Cheese Tax”. People were paying their pets (mostly dogs) a “cheese tax” anytime the dog demanded his treato. It was adorable.
I’m going to share it here, because we need more happiness in the world. But I do warn you, it’s an earworm!
“The rules is the rules and the facts is the facts, and when this puppy comes calling, you gotta pay the tax!”
I think it’s an extra layer of adorable because it infers that the pups know that they are good, that they provide loyalty and affection and make their owners’ lives better, therefore they get a “cheese tax”.
Yes, I’m going there.
We writers are the dogs, at the mercy of the Medium cheese tax system. It has gone up and down many times in the three and a half years I have been here without question.
With the advent of the boost, sometimes once in a while we would get bigger pieces of cheese (if we were very lucky), and the rest of the cheese was paid in smaller, but not completely insulting increments. Pre-dating that, editors were once paid a salary here and top writers got bonus checks (I just missed this cheese tax).
In one way or another, writers have always gotten their cheese here. Some made more than others, sure. Sometimes the boost system seemed unfair, clique-ish and an impossibly high bar for many of us.
But the cheese drawer was never just…crumbs. It was usually enough to cover our membership and feel like a little pat on the back for most of us I imagine. My first month here I made $0.11, and I was so excited (it was actually just a week, the following month I made around $11 I think!).
