Reading this I am so very, very, very, very glad that I have not paid for membership. Why should I pay a huge corporation to allow them to use me as a lab rat in order to see how much they can control my reading? For every step forward that Medium takes they take 3 to 5 steps backward. At this rate they will be done by the end of the year.
It’s interesting to see that Medium actually communicates with members. They have stopped doing that with the untouchables caste I’m a member of on my side of the wall. I see now that this might be a good thing.
While Medium vehemently denies this, the evidence clearly points to the fact that they want stringent control over what gets surfaced for us to read. Everything they have been doing as of late is about control and restriction. It stinks.
Just as with Trump’s wall, Ev Williams ‘s wall follows the ‘divide and conquer’ paradigm. It seemed to work for China, Hitler, Communist Russia, South Africa, and Israel. With the exception of Israel, all those walls have crumbled. And now Trump and Ev Williams are following the same thinking and it’s not working very well for them. Instead of using the same tired old paradigms that don’t work (for long), how about coming up with something new? How about being innovative and nurturing the power of the people rather than trying to restrict and control it?
I’ve said it before but allow me to reiterate why I am boycotting Medium membership. Medium has stated that most of the money they collect through their membership goes to pay writers — but only writers who write non-fiction within an EXTREMELY narrow spectrum of subject matter that they approve of. Why the hell should I pay my money to writers who write stuff that I have no interest in reading? Why? If I am going to pay writers with my money then I want to pay the writers that I enjoy reading and want to support rather than writers who only write Medium-approved articles within a very narrow range of Medium-approved subject matter that I have no interest in — and which always appears at the top of every feed while Medium does everything it can to hide the good stuff that I do want to read.
Reading Jack Preston King ‘s article I see that there are plenty of other reasons to boycott Medium membership than just my primary reason.
