Another Open Letter to Medium
Dear People Running the Medium.com website,
It’s been almost three years since I’ve last written an open letter to a humongous writing website, and, to be honest, I’m not exactly sure how to start this letter off. I guess when you’ve been writing here for three years, you’re probably more complacent with how things work than when you first start out (especially when you don’t interact much with other people like I do). Speaking of…
How can I really interact with others on this website if the majority of the articles on my front page are for premium members only? There are plenty of interesting articles I would love to read because I find them useful for me as a writer. However, there’s just one teeny problem here…
IT’S PRACTICALLY NOTHING BUT PREMIUM-ONLY ARTICLES!
I mean, talk about excluding poor people like myself! I’ve complained about this problem the last time I wrote an open letter, and Medium still hasn’t solved this issue! I know I have a full-time job and that I can pay for a premium membership (since it’s less than $1 per week), but why should that be an excuse for the website’s algorithm to show us nothing but premium-only articles?
I get it — writers should get paid for their hard work. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement (I mean, come on! I’m a writer myself!). But some of us don’t have the constant money to pay for a premium membership. So, we end up getting punished by only being allowed to read three premium-only articles per month. Not three per day, not three per week.
Three per month.
Now, I do want to praise Medium’s algorithm for showing me several articles I am interested in — which is writing. However, I’m still bombarded by political articles that heavily lean into one side of the political spectrum. And we all know which side almost every website (including this one) showcases.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
Now, despite calling myself a leftist, I can’t really identify with this label anymore. Hell, in those articles I’ve linked here, I’m criticizing other leftists for alleged hypocrisy. So, I guess that means I must be bombarded with one-sided politics, am I right?
Wrong! I barely use this website (except for writing articles), and I still get these political articles shoved down my throat. It’s exhausting, I tell you! Medium, if you’re going to shove politics down my throat, can you at least make it more diverse and not one-sided?
Yes, I’ve written my fair share of political articles here, but that doesn’t mean I want politics shoved down my throat, especially when it’s one-sided (like it usually is on almost every website ever). Maybe I want to relax and turn my brain off by reading articles about Care Bears or stupid short stories.
Having special interests is what makes us stand out from others. Do you want to know what else makes people stand out? Customizing our profile pages. Believe it or not, Medium.com used to let users customize their profiles to have various colors. Now, it’s all black and white — just like other social media websites.
Everything is so boring looking now! Where’s all the color? Where’s all the pizzazz? Where’s all the fun? Why does every profile have to look and act the same nowadays? This complaint isn’t just aimed at Medium — YouTube and Instagram (along with every other social media website ever) have this same problem, too.
Why is everything aimed at us all the same thing? Do people just not like being unique anymore? Is this some conniving way of tech companies to control us even further? And do most people just want to be controlled?
Here’s the deal, Medium. I’ll bow down to your every command if you would just let us have the ability to customize our profile pages, diversify the political articles, and let us free users read at least five premium-only articles per month (like I’ve requested the last time I’ve written to you). That sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it?
…Ah, who am I kidding? No gigantic tech company like Medium is going to listen to a puny writer like myself, so why am I even bothering? Oh well, I guess I’ll be back in about three years to write a third open letter.
Yours Truly,
Emily Alexandra
