I think you're missing the point, here. If Medium actually thinks that is good writing, then this platform is going to fail badly. It shocked the hell out of me.

It's also made me realize that, together with the drop in traffic that has been taking place steadily for the past few years on Medium, the site is going to go the same way that all content writing sites (which offer payment to writers) do.

It saddens me. It means any investment here for me is going to end badly. So, once more, I have to look for other platforms. Sure, it will take a number of years for it to fade, but when a platform begins to hemorrhage readers the way Medium is, it is because of the quality of the content.

The Atlantic stopped publication on Medium at the end of September. Most professional publications have pulled out. You have to ask yourself why. Clearly, the readership isn't there anymore.

I think you're looking at Medium as if it is a platform for wannabe writers to learn to become professional writers. That's not what it used to be. It used to employ excellent writers and it was there to garner readers. I can only think that didn't work, and that Ev Williams is now changing direction, and that he is trying to make it one more site that caters to the millions of people who want to be writers. That's not where I want to be. So I'm very, very disappointed.

The people who judged this competition are not professional writers. There is no fucking way that that kind of writing would have made it in the real world. And, yes, as I also spent a couple of years working as a book editor in two London publishing houses, I think I do have an eye for what is a professional, publishable standard of writing, and what is not.

And whatever else is said about the kind of writing that won the competition, it should, at least, have measured up to that standard.