Medium takes 5 steps forward then one step back then 5 steps forward then one step back. Overall, in my opinion they are getting better and better all the time.
There are still some persistent problems such as the discoverability/visibility issue. There have been few, if any, changes to help with discoverability. Instead of a broadening of visibility, there has been a shrinking of it. The young curating staff has far too much power over what is granted visibility and their scope of interest is far too narrow. My home page still has a lot of stuff the young curating staff is trying to force everyone to read that I have no interest in. And there is a strong prioritizing of corporate publications which shoves independent authors further and further down the feed.
Another persistent problem is Medium’s utter disdain of fiction and other literary art forms. This seems to have gotten worse, not better. But as Ev Williams has clearly stated, Medium is a NEWS outlet. And fiction ain’t news so it continues to be shoved into the background. I doubt this will ever change.
Another problem is the incredibly short shelf life of articles and stories that have not been granted visibility by the young curating staff. This shelf life has been shrinking at a rapid pace. Given the sheer number of articles and stories being posted I’m not sure what can be done about this. About all an author can do is hope and pray that the young curating staff grants them visibility which can extend the shelf life from around 18 hours to a couple of days. Being featured can extend the shelf life for a few more days but the odds of that happening are probably around 1 in 500,000 and if you write fiction the odds are around 1 in 50 million.
Having more of an author bio page might be a good idea. I’m not sure. I have a one-word bio and that one word says it all. Right now I’m pretty happy with that.
As far as making it easier for readers to find all my stories in one place, this is what I did. Anyone can do this and it helps people find your work without having to sift through responses and highlights and without scrolling for days.
As for prioritizing locked stories, I like that. I have no problem with that at all and I fully understand why Medium does this.
As for promoting random articles, I like that idea. It would be a nice feature for the right column on our home pages.
I don’t envy the herculean task of running Medium. Overall, I think the Medium staff is doing a bang-up job. Medium really is a lot better now than it was 3+ years ago. Of course, anything can get better — and that includes us writers. I try to stay focused on my own writing and let the claps fall where they may. It is good, though, to keep a conversation going. Thanks, Vasco.
