Medium has indeed been an almost hostile place for all but the most dedicated writers on this platform. It’s almost impossible to grow on here without it being a full-time job.

Medium seems to take strong stances on silly ideas without really considering how it is harming the experience it claims to want to produce.

Comments — They say they want every comment to be a story.. a meaningful article. But that’s just not what comments are. Responses (esp on Mobile) is indistinguishable from a regular article. But you have to quote a specific line instead of simply commenting. Yet on desktop, you can make actual comments (or something like that). Why the inconsistency? It also shows up under your stories rather than a separate tab as comments. Most people don’t write their comments like articles, they just comment. But Medium tries to force the issue.

Premium content — The use of a paywall is understandable, but they neglect to actually tell you when you’re clicking into a premium article from the web or even a mobile/email notification. Thus people like me who can’t yet afford a membership have to waste one of only three free monthly premium articles… and almost every article on Medium is “premium” nowadays. They say they want to curate a premium experience and support writers, but most people need more than 3 articles to decide if it’s worth the money. And there is absolutely no transparency on how making your article premium even helps your article gain distribution. Seems like a black box… and one that probably doesn’t even help you. It seems like you need to be affiliated with a big publisher on here to get anywhere.

Now this?

They say they want to fight click bait.. but what tools are they actually providing to help readers delineate between click bait vs articles like yours that are just good at content? What tools are they providing to help writers fact check and make good content?

Instead of trying to force people to behaving a certain way through surface-level yet highly restrictive features, I think they need to create features that empower and encourage the right behaviors. Incentives and the idea of reward drives behavior and motivation, not arbitrary friction.

Despite all those 'complaints' (ie hard feedback) I really enjoy medium. I’ve been here for years reading and writing. I’m much too casual a writer to figure out how to grow my audience, but I love that it is so easy to write and share my thoughts.

I just wish they actually cared about fostering a positive experience instead of constantly making it harder and harder to actually enjoy being here.