I am disappointed with the new home page but then again it’s still early and maybe somehow I can grow to accept it. It certainly does not seem like an improvement; more like a little step backwards. Here is my initial listicle on the changes:

1. New from your network — I like the fact that it is now closer to the top of the page rather than floating up and down (or even disappearing) as it has been doing lately. But I hate the fact that it has been put in a tiny little box WITH NO IMAGES and that it only features 4 articles instead of 6. This seems like further proof that Medium is trying to minimize the New From Your Network feed, which to me is the most important feed of all! The new positioning and shrinking seems to be an attempt to minimize its importance.
2. Personalization of our home page — there is no longer any section for curated topics nor any link to how we can personalize our homepage by choosing the curated topics we want to appear on the home page. This is further proof that Medium wants full control of what appears on our homepage; that they think we are not intelligent enough to make choices for ourselves.
3. You might like — this section has very rarely ever included anything that I might like. There seems to be no logic as to how the stories are chosen. It appears it is populated by articles that the curating staff is pushing with all their might. There are usually way too many articles from mainstream corporate publications.
4. Based on your reading history — Seriously? Really? Then why is that section full of stuff I have no interest in?
5. Top stories for you — Once again, very little of interest to me. It’s all just stuff that the curating staff is pushing. If I see one more article about Bitcoin or Universal Basic Income or “How to Become a Billionaire By Waking Up an Hour Earlier in the Morning” I’m going to puke!
6. “Exploring” and “Discoverability” — Where? In the two and a half years I’ve been here on Medium one of the biggest complaints has always been the lack of “discoverability.” Where on this new homepage is there a link where I can discover new authors who are not hand-picked by the curating staff? The only section on this new home page that is not fully curated by the curating staff is the New From Your Network section. But the articles in that section are from people in our network. How can we discover new authors that we don’t already follow who are NOT chosen by the curating staff? There is no way on the new home page to do that. Since I’ve been here Medium continues to inhibit “discoverability.” They insist that we only discover things handpicked by the curating staff. When will they trust us to make choices for ourselves?
7. NO FICTION!!!!! — This new home page shows absolutely no evidence whatsoever that that there is any fiction or literature on the Medium platform. None! Even the Lit category is gone and if it still exists there is no way to click to it. And still, even though we’ve been begging for it for years, there is still no link to fiction or lit at the top of the page! Why the goddam fucking hell is Medium so hell-bent on hiding fiction from its readers? Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?! Why does Medium continue to thrust its middle finger at all the quality fiction writers on this platform? When the hell is that ever going to change?

This new home page is not much of an improvement. It seems to be a further narrowing of focus as to what we, as users, want to see and read; a narrowing of what is apparently available for us to choose and read. Medium should be opening up instead of narrowing down. Stop hiding things. Stop shrinking the wonderful incredible scope of what Medium has to offer. Finally give us “discoverability” rather than trying to control everything we see and have access to. Start trusting us to make choices for ourselves instead of having the curating staff make all of our choices for us. And damn it to hell, stop hating fiction so much!!!!!

The new home page has far, far fewer choices. And why are tags being ignored? If I wanted to go to a corporate mainstream media outlet I’ll go to one. I come to Medium to read because it isn’t a corporate mainstream media outlet but Medium is becoming more and more of one. The incredible scope of what Medium has to offer (most of which is intentionally hidden) is shrinking and shrinking and this new home page is evidence of that. Stop shrinking and start expanding!