I also think Medium is still the best out there but it definitely isn’t as good as it used to be. My claps are down by around 70%, my views are down by around 30%, my reads down by around 20%. The only number that has gone up is my read ratio (by around 8%). Meanwhile, before the changes I used to get curated 1 to 3 times a week but now I haven’t been curated in almost two months. The worst part is that my earnings are down by around 70%. For someone on a teeny tiny fixed income like me that really, really, really hurts. I am no longer making enough money to pay for my monthly internet access bill so technically my earnings are a negative number. I’m actually paying money out in order to write on Medium. I’m not sure how much longer I can afford to do that.

And by the way, I have not changed my writing at all — or how much I write. I realize that I might be able to get my numbers up a little bit by writing less fiction and writing more articles about writing (which inundate Medium) or articles about coding or sex or relationships or any of the formulaic self-help articles that are so popular but I won’t do that. That’s not me and I’m not going to change who I am for the sake of a few extra pennies.

I’m seriously thinking about getting a minimum wage fry-cook job at McDonalds. It pays about 30 times as much per hour as writing on Medium. Sadly, I don’t think they will hire me because I am way too old. (Lucky me, right?)

Meanwhile, as long as I can continue to afford my monthly internet access fee I will continue to be me and write on Medium and let the pennies fall where they will.