A reflection of my time on Medium

A reflection of my time on Medium

How Medium has changed how I consume content

In April 2022, I signed up to medium.com and submitted my first post. It was titled New to medium.com. It is not exactly the most original title, but it stated the obvious. In the post, I mentioned how blogging had been something I had always wanted to do, including my intentions for blogging. The post, itself, was nothing special, but it gave me a goal I wanted to achieve through the act of blogging. I wanted to be intentional, eliminating everything that I didn’t find a value in. Fast-forward to now, last July in 2023.

What have I learnt from using on Medium?

The platform looked interesting from the start. I was fascinated by the number of people who posted on Medium and the content they were producing. What I didn’t expect was the amount of time I would spend on Medium over traditional mainstream media. Even YouTube has become a distant second source of information.

What I like about Medium is that people write about their interests, hobbies, expertise, and life hacks. If I want to get a different perspective on something, I go to Medium. If I would like to learn more about a certain topic, I go to Medium. If I am eager to discover new ideas and approaches, I go to Medium. You get the idea.

Not only have I learnt new ideas, I have been fortunate to observe people’s writing styles. Personally, I like the informal, chatty style where I can get a sense of character coming from their message. I feel the platform’s recommendation engine knows what I enjoy reading.

Finally, the engagement keeps me coming back for more. Whether it is me clapping (similar to liking) a post or commenting on someone’s post, the community is supportive and interacts in a civil manner. I write on my website (codemaclige.com/blog), but I don’t get much traffic, nor do I get feedback from my readers. Using Medium, however, I get likes and comments, which is super encouraging. I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read my content.

Pros and Cons of using Medium

I’ve put together a list of pros and cons from my experience using Medium. This list has been compiled using my notes I have made from my journaling entries.

Pros

The user interface is clean, free from advertisements, and engaging with recommendations. I like the simplicity of their iOS/iPadOS app.

Medium has a great import tool. I am able to import blogs from personal website. Occasionally, the formatting is a little off, but it is much quicker than manually copying everything over.

With so many people on Medium, there’s a potential audience already there to read your content. Categorising my posts is an important element because it allows readers to pick specific topics of interest.

The engagement metric is helpful because I can get a sense of how much time readers spend on my posts. I know what topics engage more with the audience and I can choose to write posts around this topic.

Medium costs money to subscribe, but with that, there is a potential to earn money through Medium’s Partner Program. I’m nowhere near the follower criteria, but I aspire to reach it, so I can start earning money from my writing.

Cons

Posts are locked behind a paywall. If you are not subscribed to Medium, you have limited access to the platform. I believe it is three posts a day. With that, you lose potential readers because they can’t read your content. I get why they do it. I felt frustrated that I couldn’t read about certain topics, so I ended up subscribing.

There is no clear indication of viewing posts in chronological order. This is not helpful when I want to read the latest information about a specific topic. For example, I wanted to read a review of a piece of software I am interested in. It is not helpful to have posts from 2018 come up first. Software changes a lot, and post from five years ago have less value than those written this year. If there is a way to sort the posts in chronological order, it is not clear to me.

It is not a real concern right now, and not really a con, but I worry about the future for Medium. What if the platform is shut down or policy changes result in smaller audiences. This is why I have my personal website. Everything I post on Medium will be posted on my site for preservation. I also have journal entries and posts that are exclusive to my site, which I have chosen not to post on Medium.

Conclusion

I have no plans to leave Medium. I value it too much to ever think about going elsewhere. Like I have said in this post, I spend a lot of time on the platform.

I want to build an audience, expand my writing and eventually generate money from my work on Medium. I believe I have not done enough to learn how Medium works and what improves user engagement yet.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I hope you have a great day, whatever you plan to do.

If you are interested in reading more content from me on Medium, please follow this link to my profile.