Medium

Looking for Stories in All the Wrong Places

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the stories, they’re just not what I’m looking for in a read

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

I logged into Medium this morning, as I do a few times each week, now. I used to read and write and check my stats as obsessively as some of you do, but had grown disenchanted, lately, with over-“optimized,” click-baity headlines screaming at me how to trick Medium and its readers into giving me money for basically doing nothing but paraphrasing other crap on the web. No offense to that other crap, if that’s what you’re into, as a reader. It’s just…the site seems to be drowning in it, some days.

But this morning’s headlines were delightfully interesting! Even the stories that didn’t pique my interest were about things other than Medium and how to game the system and how to make money doing nothing and how writing doesn’t require any skill, just the dogged determination to keep throwing it at the wall until it sticks.

After reading a few of them, something odd happened. This popped up in my Recommended tab. Oh, Medium, you must be kidding… Well, if you don’t want more stories about making money on Medium, maybe we can send you to one of our competitors. We just want you to be happy.