I agree that the ‘top writer’ status is essentially meaningless as far as gaining exposure goes. The only thing it has ever done for me is to gain me a tiny handful of new followers. Apparently, some people will automatically follow all the top writers in a certain category. But what good does that do if they are never notified that the people they follow have posted something new and those new postings never appear in any feed?

Before the recent changes to the ‘New From Your Network’ feed algorithms, that ‘New From Your Network’ feed was a way to be notified when people we follow post something new. But it just doesn’t work that way anymore. So many of my favorite writers that I follow no longer appear in my ‘Network’ feed which leads me to believe that so much of my new postings never appear in the ‘Network’ feed of those who follow me. And this would certainly explain the over 90% drop in views that I have been receiving since the recent change in the algorithm of that feed.

I might complain occasionally but I still love Medium. It’s the best that is currently available. It is frustrating, though, when problems persist for years without any resolution (such as the extreme lack of ‘discoverability’ and Medium’s negative attitude towards fiction). It is even more frustrating when something works and Medium screws with it and makes it worse instead of better. I sure hope they fix the problem they created with the ‘New From Your Network’ feed so that we have a chance of being notified of EVERYTHING that the people we follow publish and not just a small curated sample of the most popular posts that they publish.

Reading and writing on Medium can sure try one’s patience sometimes. I’m trying really hard not to lose mine right now.