
Medium rolls out a payment model for writers based on engagement - dayve
https://www.poynter.org/2017/will-clap-for-food-medium-rolls-out-a-payment-model-for-writers-based-on-engagement/471110/
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tyingq
How do claps == engagement?

I read quite a lot of articles that are well written, but that I don't agree
with. So, I'm engaged, but I likely won't "clap".

Wouldn't this drive writers to just pander to the majority opinion?

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5trokerac3
That's all blogging ever has been. It's been long overdue that we stop
pretending it's the new home of the literati.

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adrianN
Has it ever been different? It's very hard to get published if you write
things that don't appeal to a large number of people.

~~~
mhluongo
Going through an editorial process is an additional gatekeeper that the
Internet removed, yes.

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adrianN
But the editor is paid for making your book more sellable, so in theory the
Internet removed a barrier for a more diverse set of opinions in publications.

~~~
tenpies
I think we just traded a bad system for a worst one. Could you imagine what
would happen if Nabokov attempted to release Lolita in 2017 using a blog?
Google/Facebook would ban him before he even got chapter 2 posted and there
would probably be a SJW brigade trying to dox him so they can destroy his
life.

Same goes for any book that is even mildly controversial. At the end of the
day all these platforms are advertising delivery mechanisms and controversy is
just not advertiser-friendly.

~~~
mirimir
Well, he published _Lolita_ through Olympia Press. According to Wikipedia, it
was "Paris-based", and "specialized in books which could not be published
(without legal action) in the English-speaking world".

The equivalent today would arguably be a Tor onion site. Or perhaps Freenet.
Sure, Google and Facebook would ban him. But then, in the 1950s, American
publishers _did_ ban him. Until the 60s happened, anyway.

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abhisuri97
While the idea of showing extent of engagement is great, I can't help but
notice that articles which would only have 10-12 recommends have 200-300 claps
mostly bc those claps come from friends of the author trying to promote the
story. It makes it incredibly difficult as a reader to objectively ascertain
what is actually more recommended by people. Additionally, as a reader, I have
no idea what amount of claps is appropriate (eg is 10 claps excessive for a
good article or is it not enough?). The recommend model was excellent, don't
fix it if it aint broke.

~~~
CharlesW
I couldn't agree with this more. And from many other services that have since
simplified their ratings, Medium should already know that people are going to
give articles either one "clap" or all the "claps" they can, making the
additional feedback precision mostly pointless.

I actually find myself using Medium less recently, I _think_ because of this
(perceived, at least) additional complexity.

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uuoc
Attention Medium writers: If you want claps, then you must insist that Medium
drop the dickbars (see:
[https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars](https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars)).

Medium with dickbars? = No claps.

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eterm
Are dickbars the things that break me reading medium by popping up every time
I highlight text? (Which I do frequently while reading).

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have_faith
I highlight text as I'm reading too, clicking very fast as I do. Every time
one of those share boxes pops up and because of my fast clicking I
accidentally click some 'tweet highlighted text' button I almost have an
aneurysm.

~~~
bemmu
I recently did a test of what percentage of HN users highlight text as they
read. 11.52%

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have_faith
61% according to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4839436](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4839436),
ignoring to increase text contrast.

Would be very interested in what percentage of "regular" people have the
habit. My girlfriend looked very puzzled when she first observed me doing it
and found it very peculiar.

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zoul
BTW: _A branding statement from Medium shared with Poynter says the new
wordmark and branding system "reflects the unique and dynamic nature of the
ideas you can find on Medium without compromising the voices and stories
shared."_

It always amazes me that people can come up with this stuff with a straight
face.

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bryanrasmussen
in my experience you don't come up with it with a straight face, but you do
publicize it with a straight face.

~~~
metalliqaz
Absolutely. Similar things happen in other fields from engineering to showbiz.
(aka brainstorming) What amazes me is that people have a different "mode" in
publicity/advertising that allows them to consume this stuff seriously.

~~~
Finnucane
A lot of effort goes into architecting sentences like that.

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perlgeek
Tracking reading would probably be a better measure than something that a
reader has to do consciously.

With the extra action required, you reward agreeable content, not necessarily
interesting content.

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exidy
Seems like a recipe for clapbait.

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bradgessler
And clapfraud

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welcomebrand
and Russian clapfarms

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matt_s
I was going to reply with a "is this reddit?" But these compact comments are
insightful into what could happen.

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raleigh_user
Its about time for facebook to buy medium and roll it into some sort of longer
form content portion of their offering.

LinkedIn/Microsoft acquiring them would also be interesting since writing on
LI is absolutely horrible.

Seems medium is lost product wise. It is getting progressively worse and the
new "clap" feature is hilariously bad.

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danielharrison
I like the clap feature. I wasn't quite sure what to think of it at the start
but it definitely better than a binary 'like'.

It gives me the ability to drop 'claps' as I'm scrolling through an article
and liking certain parts. I get to the end and there's a total of however-many
claps I've clapped.

I hope medium are tracking the position each clap was made, along with certain
things like if a user genuinely read the article - opposed to those who just
clapped from the front page or at the top of the article without scrolling.

~~~
jmnicolas
Do you really want a writer to wright for claps or to say what she has to say
?

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mgiannopoulos
"Medium pays authors by dividing up every individual subscriber’s fee between
the different articles they’ve read that month."

So if you read one article during a month , your entire fee would go to one
source even if you are subscribed to many sources ? Not sure how to feel about
this.

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metalliqaz
Why? It's the consumer's fault s/he over paid for one article. Author got
lucky. Good for them.

~~~
mgiannopoulos
If I want to support a source without remembering to read every article or
clap a thousand times , I can't under this model.

Plus, is this going to be transparent to the readers? Will I know how my 5$
were split among sources?

~~~
pc86
Once you pay Medium, it's Medium's money. Sending fine-grained monetary
support to content creators is exactly what Patreon is for.

~~~
joering2
Were you serious about your bet?

~~~
pc86
The fact that you are tracking down my other comments to make remarks
completely unrelated to the thread isn't exactly convincing me I was wrong.

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Brajeshwar
Perhaps a bit off topic but Medium seems to be experimenting and "pushing"
writers to write more. I don't write regularly and my articles don't attract
much traffic/visitors. However, the followers are increasing exponentially for
no apparent reason. I see no correlation with anything and I don't know where
to look.

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minademian
Feels like Medium is clutching at straws after failing with the Members-Only
content model...

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jph
Medium has a core challenge ahead, and IMHO the opportunity is more akin to
Patreon donations and less akin to Facebook likes.

I read many long blog posts especially about tech. I donate money to many
authors and creators. I've learned the hard way that paywalls interfere with
my ability to share links with more people, and undermine open source
discussions. And voting systems tend to be gamed.

Medium's price point is a risk. Flat monthly fees of $5 is too low for what I
spend on quality writing, but also too high for many people in less-wealthy
areas.

I advocate a tip jar. It's the worst form of payment, except for all the
oth­ers. I also advocate a sponsorship button to encourage future writing and
projects.

I believe success looks a lot like what creators such as Amanda Palmer are
doing with fundraising. If you're interested, watch her TED talk or her
Patreon page. I don't know if her way would work for part-time writers, or ad-
hoc bloggers. I do believe it's a worthwhile experiment.

~~~
subpixel
What works for creators (something like Patreon) won't work for Medium in this
case. Medium needs to profit in a substantial way, and billing millions of
credit cards every month seems the only way to get there. The clap-funding
thing is just an attempt at including creators so they don't stop using
Medium.

But, as a product, Medium is only a nice-to-have. My willingness to support my
favorite writers is wholly disconnected from an interest in paying Medium for
access.

If they hadn't taken so much money, Medium could be funded like Wikipedia. My
$5/mo would feel better spent if it were helping fund the operation as opposed
to propping up a billionaire's latest experiment.

That said, maybe we should all just be thankful Medium isn't trying to solve
their problem with an ICO.

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koolba
> Essentially, we look at the engagement of each individual member (claps
> being the primary signal) and allocate their monthly subscription fee based
> on that engagement.

Reminds me of the sad Jeb Bush quote from last year, " _Please clap._ ".

> To make its new pay-by-engagement initiative work, Medium needs to get
> enough people to shell out the $5/per month membership fee.

I don't see this model ever working. I just don't see content worth paying
for. Most of the articles I read, be it on Medium or elsewhere, are by people
who are passionate about a subject who want their content to be as widespread
as possible. The content creators I see using this are not those people.

> The paywall will now be metered, mirroring similar paywalls at The New York
> Times and The Washington Post, allowing non-members a limited amount of
> locked stories each month.

Surely I'm not the only one that regularly clears their browser cookies. I've
never ran into this being an issue for any of those sites.

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rewrew
There's no reason to have the "claps" \-- they could easily measure engagement
without the readers having to actively do anything (visits to page/time on
site, etc.). This reeks of a gimmick/someone trying to do something for their
MBA thesis, vs. actually trying to get authors fairly paid.

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epx
Wouldn't that invite for more extremist/incendiary texts?

~~~
AnkleInsurance
Are you implying certain viewpoints aren't worthy of their own space to be
expressed?

~~~
james_pm
There's a valid concern that Medium would be sending money to those with "alt"
viewpoints, or that Medium ends up having to censor those same "alt"
viewpoints (de-platforming) to avoid that.

~~~
AnkleInsurance
People with good content that you don't agree with don't deserve the same
opportunity to be paid for their content? I've never used medium but it's
starting to sound like I better not bother.

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allenleein
Expanding the Medium Partner Program

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15074123](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15074123)

FYI

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narimanj
How about a payment model based on PageRank? This way Medium can measure the
engagement from all over the web and not just Medium or Medium partners.

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jessaustin
The most interesting bit is the footer with links to discussions of the
organizations leaving Medium... apparently this time donations will be the
answer!

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eterm
I'm not sure I want to give someone the clap!

(It is slang for gonorrhea, although perhaps a bit archaic now.)

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0xbear
People pay for Medium? I fail to see what useful service it provides.

~~~
_pmf_
"Club Penguin for narcissists."

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amrrs
There are not many social media platforms where users pay more undivided
attention. Medium is one such platform where Long form articles get attention
and they've got an active user base too. Paywall - Medium Member seems to be a
decent monetization plan yet without Writers being shared the same income,
Quality articles might not flow in. This seems to be a wise decision for a
company to get some numbers on their balance sheet and gain some giant's
attention for potential acquisition!

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mustafabisic1
Medium is definitely making some major moves and I love it. Especially the
claps. They are so many quality posts there and I love giving people standing
ovation they deserve.

~~~
thanatropism
Can you give us some examples of such quality posts?

~~~
mustafabisic1
Sure thing man. 1\. [https://medium.com/marketing-and-
entrepreneurship/10-cold-em...](https://medium.com/marketing-and-
entrepreneurship/10-cold-email-tips-i-used-to-get-60-000-app-signups-
dd928d86ca21#.h0s9l6wzp) \- was on HN homepage 2\.
[https://chatbotslife.com/how-i-got-100k-users-in-1-month-
usi...](https://chatbotslife.com/how-i-got-100k-users-in-1-month-using-a-
viral-loop-86a83b4509df) 3\. [https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-you-can-
land-a-6-figure-...](https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-you-can-
land-a-6-figure-job-in-tech-with-no-connections-6eed0de26ea4) 4\.
[https://medium.com/personal-growth/how-to-use-angellist-
to-g...](https://medium.com/personal-growth/how-to-use-angellist-to-get-a-
remote-job-53d33f62532f)

~~~
thanatropism
Those read like spammy, scammy get-rich-quick titles to me.

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amingilani
I love this idea! It's like what a lot of cryptocurrency powered content sites
work like [https://steemit.com/](https://steemit.com/) where you upvote with
crypto.

But this brings it to the fiat world. And members get access to paid content.
It's awesome! I just wish Medium worked on their white-labelling a bit more,
and added a few advanced editorial features and I'd switch our company blog
over immediately.

