While this is very sad news, it certainly is not surprising. Medium has been headed in this direction for a very long time--maybe even since the beginning. We, the quality writers on Medium are the victims of a con. We have been lured into a scheme to turn over our very best work only to have that work be used to increase Medium's profits at our own expense. Sadly, Medium is a corporation and the one and only goal of any corporation in America is to put profit above all other considerations--in total disregard to who gets screwed over.

No doubt there will be newer writing platforms that spring up that promise fairness and democracy among writers just like Medium used to do. No doubt many quality Medium writers will leave for the new platforms and build new lists of followers only to be screwed over just like Medium is now doing. And then there will be even newer platforms that also claim fairness and democracy for writers and then they will also screw over their loyal users.

This is online predatory capitalism. Medium has become a master at it. As Medium users and writers we need to wake up to this and we need to stop bending over and being screwed by this. We are not here to make Ev Williams exponentially wealthier. Most of us are here to express ourselves through our art. But we have become stuck in a disgusting capitalist game being carried out by a billionaire obviously interested only in his own personal monetary gain and ego.

This new news only verifies this. This needs to be a wake-up call for every Medium writer. If you can't continually produce the mainstream formulaic self-help articles that Ev Williams craves more than anything else then your best bet is to get off this platform as quickly as you can.

(And if you write fiction; the one thing Ev

Williams hates more than anything in the world, then you are quadrupled screwed. Leave now!)