(Processed Photography/Unsplash)

WTF is This, Medium?

I don’t understand what this platform is for anymore. If you’re pitching me growth hacking crap, you’re doing it wrong.

--

This is not my usual vibe or usual tone. But I am worried that this platform is broken, so I’m sharing my thoughts here.

This article I received in my daily digest this morning is, sadly, not the exception when it comes to Medium:

An article promoting a guest posting service
A promotion I saw in my daily digest this morning

I have paid $5 a month for years to use this service, and whatever is happening now, this is what people are being motivated to create.

Yesterday, I started to realize that Medium may not be properly doing enough to discourage bad actors on this platform. That they are focused on gaming algorithms rather than producing the best content:

A story recommended to me yesterday. When I called the author’s piece “soulless,” he was not happy with me.

This post is essentially the kind of growth-hacking crap that Medium was initially intended to discourage. Instead, it’s the stuff that gets attention, that gets recommended to me by Medium’s algorithm.

--

--

Ernie Smith

Editor of @readtedium, the dull side of the internet. You may know me from @ShortFormBlog. Subscribe to my thought machine: http://tedium.co/