Thank you for shedding light on this dramatic incident on Medium with such elegance and accuracy, drawing from your sharp observations and valuable experiences. I also deeply appreciate your kind words. Your contributions to my publications as a senior volunteer editor—particularly in resolving some of the most challenging issues—have been invaluable. I greatly admire your focus on Substack now, which truly highlights your creative energy and dedication.
Thank you, Britni, for being such a valuable member of this wonderful community and for your commitment to speaking the truth no matter what the consequences could be.
Yup, reading comments by Stubbleblind, I got the impression he believes the greater number of readers on the platform brings in the money... but wtf do they read if not the articles we effin' write? I also edit two publications. My free time, my patience, my eye for detail, flow, grammar and copyright as well as sensitivity to Ai writing all were freely given to Medium. And for what? Yesterday I 'earned' 11 cents. So eff that. I'd rather give my writing away for free on Substack in protest. If folks buy me a coffee or something, that's good enough. It still beats what I get for my time on Medium. I wont' be renewing my FOM.
You’ve told this story like a true legend, mate. You’re the epitome of a true-blue Aussie woman, shining a light on American society in a way only you can. Fair dinkum, hats off to you, Britni—your words hit the mark every time. Bloody ripper effort! I’ve known Dr. Yildiz for decades, mate, and let me tell ya, he’s a deadset legend. He’s empowered countless people over the years and even helped us oldies like me take the plunge into the daunting digital ocean. Fair dinkum, he’s a bloke who truly makes a difference! Too right, mate—Medium should be rewarding him, not chucking him in distribution jail. Talk about biting the hand that feeds 'em and shooting themselves in the foot at the same time. Fair dinkum, they need to wake up and sort this mess out!
I enjoyed your article, Britni. I've followed the Medium debacle with interest, but I'm not as invested as many other writers. What impressed me about your writing was the consistent, steady POV. It wasn't emotional, angry, incredulous, or full of blame. This is how it used to be, then a slide into disaster and a probable hero at the end (btw, I agree). Excellent read, thanks!
Medium has fallen apart in recent times. There seems to be no guiding intelligence in charge wrestling things back at all. So perhaps AI is now running the place.
What a sad story that the Medium leaders watch what happens without reacting - they act as if there is no alternative. Well, it is - and we‘re all here now!
Hi Britni, thank you for writing this wonderful story. You also inspired me to write one as I have known Dr Yildiz for long. He invited me to Medium and made me a writer, an editor, content curator, publication owner, and even media coordinator of his remarkable publications. I wish I could be a creative storyteller like you. I learn a lot from your style. Thanks for being a source of inspiration and education to me.
I faced initial challenges with my writing, mainly with regard to the monetisation strategy of my work. How could I offer all of my work on Medium, with the work of all the other writers on the platform, for the same price as what I might ask for just my work on Substack?
I wanted to use both platforms, monetising my work on both, but I struggled to see how I could compete with Medium's offering, at least from a value for money perspective. However, it appears that there is a reason why I couldn't compete with such value, because in today's world, its viability is now in question.
Pay per subscription is a more expensive and higher commitment model than Medium's membership system, however it's hard to argue with such a simple model.
I was concerned about the viability of a pay per subscription model in our increasingly financially difficult times, however what I had not predicted was that such challenges would impact a bigger business such as Medium. It's true that in unstable economic times low hanging fruit are the first to go, and it seems that Medium has ended up in this category. In today's tougher economic condition, maybe pay per subscription is the only solid ground we have.
Your observations make sense and align with my findings too. One highlight in Medium's case is the fire happened due to mismanagement and lack of strategic direction despite competative position, not the model which still works.
I appreciate the comment! And of course, it's a multifaceted issue. After recent events, it'll be interesting to see where both Medium and the writing community in general end up, with regard to finances that is.
Well put. I NEVER saw ANY advantage on the Friend of Medium. I didn't see an advantage (MY perspective is different) in becoming aaMedium PAID subscriber because... Well, Medium is NOT my friend. I moved to Vocal Media long ago, and I am sort of happy with it. The thing is, the Medium Partner Program is a FARSE, a joke!, MPP is the only way to qualify for earnings at Medium since the 2024 policy change.
At Medium NOT ALL WRITERS ARE TREATED EQUALLY. But most people didn't care because THEY were on the exclusive side, and now that all of that has crumbled, suddenly everybody there feels what the Medium's Third World feels like. It may be a lesson, or karma, who knows...
Hi Britni, I too am a #Medium_refugee lol (just borrowing it from TikTok). I love Medium still but I can't bring myself to spend hours on platform to earn a few cents. So I left. Substack isn't bad at all. Hopefully we can bring enough content here to make a few dollars. Mitch.
For such a successful publication to stop approving articles on Medium, it's telling and I don't think bodes well for the platform. It is a sad day for Medium users.
Hey everyone, I’m also a #medium_refugee 🤷♀️🫣 It’s been a tough ride over there, not worth my time anymore.
It’s sad when the invested writers stop believing in the platform.. Medium had so much potential, yet clipped its wings by itself.
I am also grateful to DrMehmet for his continuous dedication to writers and showing the way to Substack. I’m going to study all his materials and grow here instead. I’ve had my Substack for a year now, but I wasn’t dedicating much time to it.
It really is sad. I still post the stuff I write on Substck Notes to Medium—poems and short personal stories—because—why not? But I really do hope it comes back to what it was!
So very well conveyed Britini. How Medium went from being reliable, entertaining and great place to be, to a shoddy site. When I started in Jan 2024, it was a ray of hope. I knew it would take time to get used to writing on the platform, but despite early tething problems, I thought my experience would get better. I did, in some ways, but there were a huge amount of scammers and issues with AI. I stayed put but throughout the year, I felt things disintegrate. It definitely didn't fill me with the same enthusiasm being on Medium and I felt like quitting towards the end of the year. I think this reflected the underlying issues going on in the background.
Dr Mehmet is a heaven send to us all. It's shameful that he also has suffered from the chaotic situation on Medium, despite great attempts to address it. I too want to grow and develop on substack, and plan to do that this year. Who would ever think that a year down the line, Medium would be in this sad situation. Sadly, I think it is irreversible.
I’ve experimented with AI. In fact it’s become a significant part of my planning and research. But not my writing. At the moment I can’t get it to write something that can grip me and keep me reading through the night. There are flashes of brilliance, sure, but they don’t grow and rush and carry me along.
It’s less work to simply write.
In the hands of people who aren’t creative - except in scamming - or who struggle with writing in English, AI seems like an attractive way to wealth. After all, it produces grammatically correct, correctly spelled English and that is something that 99% of humanity struggles with.
I worry that Medium's struggles are just the tip of the iceberg. AI is getting better faster than we can.
A year from now will I be content in reading AI stories for pleasure?
I think Medium set itself up to be exploited and failed to maintain its own great reputation as a home for good writing.
I’m not giving up on writers, just that I can’t see how Medium in its current form is worth my time. Or anyone's really.
I agree Britni, that AI used in certain circumstances or at the very least in a highly trained role, could be helpful. I do find it great for general information and research (ie) "find me the latest train times, prices, blah blah" and from that point of view, it can be a helpful personal assistant. But it sure lacks humanity for writing stories that resonate and are human - especially if used in its most basic format. Any such stories will be robotic and not of high quality. Yes, this is just the tip of the iceberg with AI. Many still can't detect AI, and the detectors don't work.
I think Medium has failed its own vision and dreams or mis-sold them, and is trying to keep its head high and sound hopeful. I never earned much on Medium, and I'm even in the $100 club, and am now in the 0.01 club, a year later. I don't see Medium as a way I want to spend my time or energy anymore. I've felt it had problems for some time, and I think a platform with thousands of publications and millions of subscribers is not going to be able to sustain genuine growth. It's been attacked constantly by scammers despite great efforts to stop them, and there has been no control. The end result is disaster, like what you're seeing now.
I used to put a LOT of work into detecting and rejecting plagiarists. For them it was a challenge: find some writing that didn't have much of an audience and was a little obscure, copy it, file off the serial numbers, and republish it, maybe make some Medium money by finding a publication that would publish it. And we published just about anyone who followed the rules.
It was a challenge for me too, even when they would use various tools to try to stay ahead, like using a paraphrasing app to keep the same ideas, just in different words. Or, my personal favourite, finding a Youtube video in a foreign language, trascribing it, and running the output through an autotranslate into English.
I got pretty good at it and when I nailed them, I warned other editors in other publications.
The key giveaway was usually that someone who appeared to be a penniless Pakistani was handing out investment advice to New Yorkers or talking up espresso coffee art or some other unlikely subject. Really?
Then along came AI and suddenly none of my tools worked. They weren't copying anybody. The content was good English, maybe a little bland, but nobody else had used those words in that order in any language.
I learnt how to spot it - let's face it, three years back it wasn't difficult - but I wasn't empowered to reject it as a copyright breach. It was just bland writing, usually full of errors. There was no challenge, no payoff.
So the scammers and shonks won. Medium's response was ineffective. Can't use AI behind the paywall, they said but foolproof AI detection didn't exist and still doesn't. You might pick most of it but you won't nail the good stuff. If you call out everyone you suspect of using AI you'll start to call out genuine writers who for one reason or another produce stilted writing. Maybe English isn't their first language and they are using some autotranslator to publish something they have written. Or whatever.
Just between you and me, Medium gave up long before I did. Their strategy is that genuine readers won't follow poor writers. Accept the money from the fakes and fraudsters and keep the genuine writers happy. It's not working. The algorithm is flawed. It shows.
I have recently arrived at the same conclusions. I identified a massive obvious bot farm (likely originating from China) more than three months ago, and those accounts are still producing AI-generated content behind the paywall. This earnings fiasco is the final slap in the face, as they pull the plug on legitimate writers like us.
I wouldn't be surprised if they are using AI to analyse and reverse-engineer the algorithm. See what works and what doesn't, get ahead of Medium's decision loop.
Yup, the collapse in earnings is what drove me here. I'm still there on Medium but I've cut back on time spent online. They want the platform to die, if they don't it's not obvious given the way they're just constantly reminding us that it's a waste of time to create there.
I had hoped that management knew what they were doing and could see what was coming when they widened out the payment system to all those new countries. As an editor for a large pub, I knew exactly how it would be seen. The perfect storm, I guess, with cheap and efficient AI coming on stream.
I agree. 1 Million subscriptions at $5 per month (some $15) goes a long way in incentivizing everyone to 'monetize' there. I think Substack is the future in that we can personalize our content in a way that Ai would be hard pressed to replicate convincingly.
Now I just have to figure out how to do a 'live' and I'm in. Lol
Thank you for shedding light on this dramatic incident on Medium with such elegance and accuracy, drawing from your sharp observations and valuable experiences. I also deeply appreciate your kind words. Your contributions to my publications as a senior volunteer editor—particularly in resolving some of the most challenging issues—have been invaluable. I greatly admire your focus on Substack now, which truly highlights your creative energy and dedication.
Thank you, Britni, for being such a valuable member of this wonderful community and for your commitment to speaking the truth no matter what the consequences could be.
You are most kind. It is outrageous the way Medium has trashed such a wonderful platform, treating its most valuable assets with disdain.
Yup, reading comments by Stubbleblind, I got the impression he believes the greater number of readers on the platform brings in the money... but wtf do they read if not the articles we effin' write? I also edit two publications. My free time, my patience, my eye for detail, flow, grammar and copyright as well as sensitivity to Ai writing all were freely given to Medium. And for what? Yesterday I 'earned' 11 cents. So eff that. I'd rather give my writing away for free on Substack in protest. If folks buy me a coffee or something, that's good enough. It still beats what I get for my time on Medium. I wont' be renewing my FOM.
You’ve told this story like a true legend, mate. You’re the epitome of a true-blue Aussie woman, shining a light on American society in a way only you can. Fair dinkum, hats off to you, Britni—your words hit the mark every time. Bloody ripper effort! I’ve known Dr. Yildiz for decades, mate, and let me tell ya, he’s a deadset legend. He’s empowered countless people over the years and even helped us oldies like me take the plunge into the daunting digital ocean. Fair dinkum, he’s a bloke who truly makes a difference! Too right, mate—Medium should be rewarding him, not chucking him in distribution jail. Talk about biting the hand that feeds 'em and shooting themselves in the foot at the same time. Fair dinkum, they need to wake up and sort this mess out!
Dr Mehmet has made a difference to countless people, myself included. No praise is too high.
I enjoyed your article, Britni. I've followed the Medium debacle with interest, but I'm not as invested as many other writers. What impressed me about your writing was the consistent, steady POV. It wasn't emotional, angry, incredulous, or full of blame. This is how it used to be, then a slide into disaster and a probable hero at the end (btw, I agree). Excellent read, thanks!
I definitely feel AI is wrecking Medium. It's the elephant in the room
Medium has fallen apart in recent times. There seems to be no guiding intelligence in charge wrestling things back at all. So perhaps AI is now running the place.
What a sad story that the Medium leaders watch what happens without reacting - they act as if there is no alternative. Well, it is - and we‘re all here now!
Yup. Say should we all start using a hashtag to find each other here? I propose #Medium_refugee.
LOL.
Hi Britni, thank you for writing this wonderful story. You also inspired me to write one as I have known Dr Yildiz for long. He invited me to Medium and made me a writer, an editor, content curator, publication owner, and even media coordinator of his remarkable publications. I wish I could be a creative storyteller like you. I learn a lot from your style. Thanks for being a source of inspiration and education to me.
I feel the same way about you, Aiden! You have skills that I lack. We are both united in admiration of this remarkable man, though!
I faced initial challenges with my writing, mainly with regard to the monetisation strategy of my work. How could I offer all of my work on Medium, with the work of all the other writers on the platform, for the same price as what I might ask for just my work on Substack?
I wanted to use both platforms, monetising my work on both, but I struggled to see how I could compete with Medium's offering, at least from a value for money perspective. However, it appears that there is a reason why I couldn't compete with such value, because in today's world, its viability is now in question.
Pay per subscription is a more expensive and higher commitment model than Medium's membership system, however it's hard to argue with such a simple model.
I was concerned about the viability of a pay per subscription model in our increasingly financially difficult times, however what I had not predicted was that such challenges would impact a bigger business such as Medium. It's true that in unstable economic times low hanging fruit are the first to go, and it seems that Medium has ended up in this category. In today's tougher economic condition, maybe pay per subscription is the only solid ground we have.
If you can't pay, you don't play; I guess.
Your observations make sense and align with my findings too. One highlight in Medium's case is the fire happened due to mismanagement and lack of strategic direction despite competative position, not the model which still works.
I appreciate the comment! And of course, it's a multifaceted issue. After recent events, it'll be interesting to see where both Medium and the writing community in general end up, with regard to finances that is.
Well put. I NEVER saw ANY advantage on the Friend of Medium. I didn't see an advantage (MY perspective is different) in becoming aaMedium PAID subscriber because... Well, Medium is NOT my friend. I moved to Vocal Media long ago, and I am sort of happy with it. The thing is, the Medium Partner Program is a FARSE, a joke!, MPP is the only way to qualify for earnings at Medium since the 2024 policy change.
At Medium NOT ALL WRITERS ARE TREATED EQUALLY. But most people didn't care because THEY were on the exclusive side, and now that all of that has crumbled, suddenly everybody there feels what the Medium's Third World feels like. It may be a lesson, or karma, who knows...
Here is a better explanation:
https://dgrimaldo.medium.com/making-money-writing-at-medium-or-substack-c92832c2cef3
Hi Britni, I too am a #Medium_refugee lol (just borrowing it from TikTok). I love Medium still but I can't bring myself to spend hours on platform to earn a few cents. So I left. Substack isn't bad at all. Hopefully we can bring enough content here to make a few dollars. Mitch.
Medium refugee, lol. Same here. :) Haven't started writing yet, but enjoy browsing around and getting the feel of the platform.
For such a successful publication to stop approving articles on Medium, it's telling and I don't think bodes well for the platform. It is a sad day for Medium users.
Great article and so very true! I wholeheartedly agree with you sentiments and hope that others will follow his leadership
Hey everyone, I’m also a #medium_refugee 🤷♀️🫣 It’s been a tough ride over there, not worth my time anymore.
It’s sad when the invested writers stop believing in the platform.. Medium had so much potential, yet clipped its wings by itself.
I am also grateful to DrMehmet for his continuous dedication to writers and showing the way to Substack. I’m going to study all his materials and grow here instead. I’ve had my Substack for a year now, but I wasn’t dedicating much time to it.
It really is sad. I still post the stuff I write on Substck Notes to Medium—poems and short personal stories—because—why not? But I really do hope it comes back to what it was!
Sure. Medium is a great writing platform. It’s easy, it has some top SEO tools, it still has enormous reach.
I can write and earn some money there. I just like Substack a lot better.
I have a plan, I’m putting it into practice, I know it will work.
The way things are now, Medium might not be around in four years when I expect to be really making full-time money. It’s a dead end for me.
So very well conveyed Britini. How Medium went from being reliable, entertaining and great place to be, to a shoddy site. When I started in Jan 2024, it was a ray of hope. I knew it would take time to get used to writing on the platform, but despite early tething problems, I thought my experience would get better. I did, in some ways, but there were a huge amount of scammers and issues with AI. I stayed put but throughout the year, I felt things disintegrate. It definitely didn't fill me with the same enthusiasm being on Medium and I felt like quitting towards the end of the year. I think this reflected the underlying issues going on in the background.
Dr Mehmet is a heaven send to us all. It's shameful that he also has suffered from the chaotic situation on Medium, despite great attempts to address it. I too want to grow and develop on substack, and plan to do that this year. Who would ever think that a year down the line, Medium would be in this sad situation. Sadly, I think it is irreversible.
I’ve experimented with AI. In fact it’s become a significant part of my planning and research. But not my writing. At the moment I can’t get it to write something that can grip me and keep me reading through the night. There are flashes of brilliance, sure, but they don’t grow and rush and carry me along.
It’s less work to simply write.
In the hands of people who aren’t creative - except in scamming - or who struggle with writing in English, AI seems like an attractive way to wealth. After all, it produces grammatically correct, correctly spelled English and that is something that 99% of humanity struggles with.
I worry that Medium's struggles are just the tip of the iceberg. AI is getting better faster than we can.
A year from now will I be content in reading AI stories for pleasure?
I think Medium set itself up to be exploited and failed to maintain its own great reputation as a home for good writing.
I’m not giving up on writers, just that I can’t see how Medium in its current form is worth my time. Or anyone's really.
I agree Britni, that AI used in certain circumstances or at the very least in a highly trained role, could be helpful. I do find it great for general information and research (ie) "find me the latest train times, prices, blah blah" and from that point of view, it can be a helpful personal assistant. But it sure lacks humanity for writing stories that resonate and are human - especially if used in its most basic format. Any such stories will be robotic and not of high quality. Yes, this is just the tip of the iceberg with AI. Many still can't detect AI, and the detectors don't work.
I think Medium has failed its own vision and dreams or mis-sold them, and is trying to keep its head high and sound hopeful. I never earned much on Medium, and I'm even in the $100 club, and am now in the 0.01 club, a year later. I don't see Medium as a way I want to spend my time or energy anymore. I've felt it had problems for some time, and I think a platform with thousands of publications and millions of subscribers is not going to be able to sustain genuine growth. It's been attacked constantly by scammers despite great efforts to stop them, and there has been no control. The end result is disaster, like what you're seeing now.
I used to put a LOT of work into detecting and rejecting plagiarists. For them it was a challenge: find some writing that didn't have much of an audience and was a little obscure, copy it, file off the serial numbers, and republish it, maybe make some Medium money by finding a publication that would publish it. And we published just about anyone who followed the rules.
It was a challenge for me too, even when they would use various tools to try to stay ahead, like using a paraphrasing app to keep the same ideas, just in different words. Or, my personal favourite, finding a Youtube video in a foreign language, trascribing it, and running the output through an autotranslate into English.
I got pretty good at it and when I nailed them, I warned other editors in other publications.
The key giveaway was usually that someone who appeared to be a penniless Pakistani was handing out investment advice to New Yorkers or talking up espresso coffee art or some other unlikely subject. Really?
Then along came AI and suddenly none of my tools worked. They weren't copying anybody. The content was good English, maybe a little bland, but nobody else had used those words in that order in any language.
I learnt how to spot it - let's face it, three years back it wasn't difficult - but I wasn't empowered to reject it as a copyright breach. It was just bland writing, usually full of errors. There was no challenge, no payoff.
So the scammers and shonks won. Medium's response was ineffective. Can't use AI behind the paywall, they said but foolproof AI detection didn't exist and still doesn't. You might pick most of it but you won't nail the good stuff. If you call out everyone you suspect of using AI you'll start to call out genuine writers who for one reason or another produce stilted writing. Maybe English isn't their first language and they are using some autotranslator to publish something they have written. Or whatever.
Just between you and me, Medium gave up long before I did. Their strategy is that genuine readers won't follow poor writers. Accept the money from the fakes and fraudsters and keep the genuine writers happy. It's not working. The algorithm is flawed. It shows.
I have recently arrived at the same conclusions. I identified a massive obvious bot farm (likely originating from China) more than three months ago, and those accounts are still producing AI-generated content behind the paywall. This earnings fiasco is the final slap in the face, as they pull the plug on legitimate writers like us.
I wouldn't be surprised if they are using AI to analyse and reverse-engineer the algorithm. See what works and what doesn't, get ahead of Medium's decision loop.
With unfortunate consequences for the rest of us.
Yup, the collapse in earnings is what drove me here. I'm still there on Medium but I've cut back on time spent online. They want the platform to die, if they don't it's not obvious given the way they're just constantly reminding us that it's a waste of time to create there.
I had hoped that management knew what they were doing and could see what was coming when they widened out the payment system to all those new countries. As an editor for a large pub, I knew exactly how it would be seen. The perfect storm, I guess, with cheap and efficient AI coming on stream.
I agree. 1 Million subscriptions at $5 per month (some $15) goes a long way in incentivizing everyone to 'monetize' there. I think Substack is the future in that we can personalize our content in a way that Ai would be hard pressed to replicate convincingly.
Now I just have to figure out how to do a 'live' and I'm in. Lol