Medium rolls out a payment model for writers based on engagement

[tyingq]

How do claps == engagement?

I read quite a lot of articles that are well written, but that I don't agree with. So, I'm engaged, but I likely won't "clap".

Wouldn't this drive writers to just pander to the majority opinion?

[5trokerac3]

That's all blogging ever has been. It's been long overdue that we stop pretending it's the new home of the literati.

[conception]

Or worse, lowest common denominator "10 reasons to get a dog!" BuzzFeed style posts.

[rch]

I also think that it's a mistake to conflate public sharing with engagement, but the renumeration model is sound. Hopefully they'll roll out another redesign that manages to keep the economic mechanics intact.

[pasquinelli]

not necessarily. pandering to a strongly held minority opinion might get more claps, or a steadier stream of claps over the long run.

(does medium call likes claps? is that what a clap is?)

[abhisuri97]

While the idea of showing extent of engagement is great, I can't help but notice that articles which would only have 10-12 recommends have 200-300 claps mostly bc those claps come from friends of the author trying to promote the story. It makes it incredibly difficult as a reader to objectively ascertain what is actually more recommended by people. Additionally, as a reader, I have no idea what amount of claps is appropriate (eg is 10 claps excessive for a good article or is it not enough?). The recommend model was excellent, don't fix it if it aint broke.

[CharlesW]

I couldn't agree with this more. And from many other services that have since simplified their ratings, Medium should already know that people are going to give articles either one "clap" or all the "claps" they can, making the additional feedback precision mostly pointless.

I actually find myself using Medium less recently, I think because of this (perceived, at least) additional complexity.

[maxscam]

Is there really any way around this? It seams like the cheapest kind of social engineering

[uuoc]

Attention Medium writers: If you want claps, then you must insist that Medium drop the dickbars (see: https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars).

Medium with dickbars? = No claps.

[eterm]

Are dickbars the things that break me reading medium by popping up every time I highlight text? (Which I do frequently while reading).

[maxscam]

If were doing that, we should get rid of the mandatory double spacing as well

[zoul]

BTW: A branding statement from Medium shared with Poynter says the new wordmark and branding system "reflects the unique and dynamic nature of the ideas you can find on Medium without compromising the voices and stories shared."

It always amazes me that people can come up with this stuff with a straight face.

[bryanrasmussen]

in my experience you don't come up with it with a straight face, but you do publicize it with a straight face.

[_pmf_]

Years spent in business school has conditioned them for this.

[return0]

They should know nobody falls for that

[perlgeek]

Tracking reading would probably be a better measure than something that a reader has to do consciously.

With the extra action required, you reward agreeable content, not necessarily interesting content.

[exidy]

Seems like a recipe for clapbait.

[bradgessler]

And clapfraud

[raleigh_user]

Its about time for facebook to buy medium and roll it into some sort of longer form content portion of their offering.

LinkedIn/Microsoft acquiring them would also be interesting since writing on LI is absolutely horrible.

Seems medium is lost product wise. It is getting progressively worse and the new "clap" feature is hilariously bad.

[dredmorbius]

That creates the obvious problem that Facebook would then own it, and use it to feed its own gaping personal behavioural tracking maw.

No. Fucking. Thanks.

[danielharrison]

I like the clap feature. I wasn't quite sure what to think of it at the start but it definitely better than a binary 'like'.

It gives me the ability to drop 'claps' as I'm scrolling through an article and liking certain parts. I get to the end and there's a total of however-many claps I've clapped.

I hope medium are tracking the position each clap was made, along with certain things like if a user genuinely read the article - opposed to those who just clapped from the front page or at the top of the article without scrolling.

[makecheck]

One problem with that is Facebook is likely to hide all content behind a login wall. At least now the text is accessible.

[mgiannopoulos]

"Medium pays authors by dividing up every individual subscriber’s fee between the different articles they’ve read that month."

So if you read one article during a month , your entire fee would go to one source even if you are subscribed to many sources ? Not sure how to feel about this.

[Taek]

That sorta makes sense. If you were the one article that brought a user online that month, and the user is a full paying user, perhaps you earned it.

Really though I think you should give articles a weight that's got a six month half-life or so. Users who read articles 6 months ago are still paying out to those authors, but not as much as they are paying out to the recent articles.

[metalliqaz]

Why? It's the consumer's fault s/he over paid for one article. Author got lucky. Good for them.

[return0]

You even incentivize readers to read more. What's not to love?

[Brajeshwar]

Perhaps a bit off topic but Medium seems to be experimenting and "pushing" writers to write more. I don't write regularly and my articles don't attract much traffic/visitors. However, the followers are increasing exponentially for no apparent reason. I see no correlation with anything and I don't know where to look.

[minademian]

Feels like Medium is clutching at straws after failing with the Members-Only content model...

[jph]

Medium has a core challenge ahead, and IMHO the opportunity is more akin to Patreon donations and less akin to Facebook likes.

I read many long blog posts especially about tech. I donate money to many authors and creators. I've learned the hard way that paywalls interfere with my ability to share links with more people, and undermine open source discussions. And voting systems tend to be gamed.

Medium's price point is a risk. Flat monthly fees of $5 is too low for what I spend on quality writing, but also too high for many people in less-wealthy areas.

I advocate a tip jar. It's the worst form of payment, except for all the oth­ers. I also advocate a sponsorship button to encourage future writing and projects.

I believe success looks a lot like what creators such as Amanda Palmer are doing with fundraising. If you're interested, watch her TED talk or her Patreon page. I don't know if her way would work for part-time writers, or ad-hoc bloggers. I do believe it's a worthwhile experiment.

[subpixel]

What works for creators (something like Patreon) won't work for Medium in this case. Medium needs to profit in a substantial way, and billing millions of credit cards every month seems the only way to get there. The clap-funding thing is just an attempt at including creators so they don't stop using Medium.

But, as a product, Medium is only a nice-to-have. My willingness to support my favorite writers is wholly disconnected from an interest in paying Medium for access.

If they hadn't taken so much money, Medium could be funded like Wikipedia. My $5/mo would feel better spent if it were helping fund the operation as opposed to propping up a billionaire's latest experiment.

That said, maybe we should all just be thankful Medium isn't trying to solve their problem with an ICO.

[snarf21]

I agree with you and there is no best method. I think the sponsorship kind of approach is generally best. I posted previously that I think some kind pay per read (micro-payment) might work if done right.

Something like this: Any writer can submit an article with a micro-payment pay wall but first they must have previously done the following: They must have submitted a free article (500+ words?) within the last 12 months (and maybe requires some number of likes on your free articles) and the first 100 words are available as a snippet. Then if you like the author and the idea of the article you pay ($1? or ??) out of your Medium balance.

Authors are required to invest and develop a following but then it is easy for them to monetize their supporters. I also removes any kind of fraud since it is direct payment.

I think the other thing that Medium needs to improve on is helping to expose new authors with something interesting to say. Just emailing me all new articles every day is annoying. I'd rather get a list of three once a week that have been vetted and I'm likely to enjoy.

[koolba]

> Essentially, we look at the engagement of each individual member (claps being the primary signal) and allocate their monthly subscription fee based on that engagement.

Reminds me of the sad Jeb Bush quote from last year, "Please clap.".

> To make its new pay-by-engagement initiative work, Medium needs to get enough people to shell out the $5/per month membership fee.

I don't see this model ever working. I just don't see content worth paying for. Most of the articles I read, be it on Medium or elsewhere, are by people who are passionate about a subject who want their content to be as widespread as possible. The content creators I see using this are not those people.

> The paywall will now be metered, mirroring similar paywalls at The New York Times and The Washington Post, allowing non-members a limited amount of locked stories each month.

Surely I'm not the only one that regularly clears their browser cookies. I've never ran into this being an issue for any of those sites.

[rewrew]

There's no reason to have the "claps" -- they could easily measure engagement without the readers having to actively do anything (visits to page/time on site, etc.). This reeks of a gimmick/someone trying to do something for their MBA thesis, vs. actually trying to get authors fairly paid.

[epx]

Wouldn't that invite for more extremist/incendiary texts?

[AnkleInsurance]

Are you implying certain viewpoints aren't worthy of their own space to be expressed?

[allenleee]

Expanding the Medium Partner Program

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15074123

FYI

[narimanj]

How about a payment model based on PageRank? This way Medium can measure the engagement from all over the web and not just Medium or Medium partners.

[jessaustin]

The most interesting bit is the footer with links to discussions of the organizations leaving Medium... apparently this time donations will be the answer!

[eterm]

I'm not sure I want to give someone the clap!

(It is slang for gonorrhea, although perhaps a bit archaic now.)

[0xbear]

People pay for Medium? I fail to see what useful service it provides.

[_pmf_]

"Club Penguin for narcissists."

[TheSmiddy]

I pay for youtube and medium is basically a text based version of that.