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The Real Reason Medium Cut Your Pay
Consider how many readers you are bringing to Medium.
Over the past few weeks I’ve done nothing but read. To be honest, I’m surprised that so many don’t get that the pay-cut is permanent. I knew that the minute it happened. I’m surprised that it didn’t happen sooner.
Here’s why Medium cut the pay rate of so many, and why it was vital for the survival of the site to do so. It was also the best decision that could be made in the circumstances.
First, a bit of history necessary for you to understand that circumstances.
A brief history of Medium
Ev Williams founded Twitter alongside others. He discovered that if the site is supported by advertisers, then the advertisers make demands on what can be said on the site. So he wanted a media site that was able to sustain itself financially without advertising. That was why he created Medium. It was an experiment.
Initially, the site was free to all readers. Legacy media wrote articles here (maybe they paid Williams to write here). In any event, I could read articles from The Atlantic, The Economist, WaPo, The New York Times, and many others here (actually I’ve forgotten most of them). It was great free reading. I suspect that legacy media probably did it in order to get new paying readers for their…
