Medium’s Continued Downfall
Section from Medium’s Newsletter
A change is coming to the way we approach stories in the Partner Program about Medium, what we often call meta stories. Those kinds of stories are already something we try to keep out of your feeds as a reader unless you’ve specifically asked to follow them. The goal of the Medium Partner Program is to deliver value to readers and writers, and we often hear from our members that these kinds of stories aren’t the ones they want to read, much less pay for. You’re free to write meta stories, we just don’t want Partner Program funds going to them. Payments seem to incentivize extra navel gazing and unwanted get-rich-quick culture. In March, we will start notifying writers when we see their meta stories behind the paywall, and then begin removing them.
Since Tony Stubblebine took over as CEO from Medium, the changes that keep happening on the platform have made it worse and worse for writers. For some maybe not, but for many, including myself, it sucks.
I understand needing to save money and to try and make a company profitable. Removing the Medium-funded publications made sense, even if it meant that people seeing my writing on some of the popular publications would go away.
But the continued push of giving less and less to writes who want to publish stories behind the paywall is just disappointing. I get wanting to make sure real and good writers are being seen the most but using boosts and human curation of what stories people see has made Medium worse — not only for writers but reader too.
It’s not all about the money. There was a time during COVID, when I was writing a lot more, Medium paid well for views and reads. I was making easily a couple of hundred dollars a month by just doing something I love.
The biggest issue isn’t that my stories make barely any money now, it is things like the quote I shared above from Mediums newsletter sent this morning. It is no longer about what you write and how popular it may be on the platform, it is what Medium wants to be seen and what they want to pay writers to write about.
It isn’t censorship but it does feel icky that Medium doesn’t want people to put criticisms of Medium behind a paywall — because for the most part when people are writing about the Partner Program on Medium it is how bad the company is doing with it.
I will still post there, but I have already moved my custom domain off and I post to my own website on Ghost or here first. It’s just too bad that Medium is no longer focused on all writers but specific ones which continues to push people out.
Back to the Mac —>
Let me try to express something closer to the truth. For what I need to do, the iPad is completely adequate, and is a delightful, hopeful thing. For what I want to do, though, (and I acknowledge that the mismatch is of my own making), the iPad has ultimately out-frictioned me, at least for the time being. It has tried so very hard to be something that it really isn’t, in the service of people like myself who must necessarily conceptualise their computing needs using that ubiquitous human cognitive bias of preference for the familiar.
This blog post by Matt is not only fantastic in that it is written so well (something that isn’t surprising due to Matt being a published novelist)and very thorough. But it also is exactly what I would hope others writing about tech would learn from.
The move back to the Mac isn’t because one is a winner (Matt’s words) and one is a loser but because of preference and Matt explains this eloquently through the post.
His move to the Mac makes sense, and his frustrations with the iPad seem legitimate.
The Hunter Biden pardon gives Donald Trump powerful new political cover—>
This isn’t a political blog, but a personal blog. And personally I care about politics. So even though my goal wasn’t to talk about politics here, I am going to because I care about it. Especially in today’s crazy political climate.
The article linked above is so fucking frustrating to me. Not because I disagree fully with the headline, but that it should say Trump not Biden, and how Trump pardoned his son-in-laws father, Charles Kushner, when Trump was president. Clinton also pardoned his half-brother during his presidency but no one talks about it.
My biggest is issue with the article though, is how it starts with Biden and what he did but then subtly mentions Trump pardoning his own cronies towards the end of the article and also subtly mentions how pardoning them also protected Trump from being wrapped up in their crimes:
Trump, to be sure, took a freewheeling approach to pardons in his first term, granting clemency to cronies like former national security adviser Mike Flynn, longtime adviser Roger Stone, 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort and White House aide Steve Bannon. All of those pardons, though, were tied to specific investigations and crimes those men had been accused or convicted of. (Tellingly, the men also were all connected to investigations that could have implicated Trump himself.)
Pardoning Hunter helped Hunter, not Joe Biden. You can say it made Joe feel better, but he didn’t do it to protect himself like Trump did with his own pardons. Him saying he wasn’t going to do it is annoying, but after so many flip flops from the other side I wish Joe Biden would have just owned it instead of the more measured and defensive response he provided.
December 3, 2024 The Hunter Biden pardon gives Donald Trump powerful new political cover
Today Sucks
2024 Election Results
I don’t have a lot to say, other than I’m disappointed. Not just that half the country chose Trump, but I feel like our fight wasn’t enough. This isn’t victim blaming, but taking accountability and reflecting on what our side could have done better — something the other side never does.
I am realizing once again how easy it is to get caught up in bullshit and forgetting what is truly important to me. I am not saying voting, elections, our representation, and the future of our country isn’t important. What I’m realizing is my health, mental and physical, and my family should be more of a focus for me.
Politics and online drama has been easy to become addicted to. I’m taking a break from both and going to focus on my health and my family. I will still fight for what I think is right, and will continue to be informed when necessary. But the obsession that I got sucked into needs to go away.
I’m proud to be an American, and at the same time disappointed in the direction this country is going. I’m still hopeful for the future, I just hope this isn’t the beginning of the end.
Connected Episode: 523—>
The iPad Guys are back to using the iPad again because of…. OLED.
The most ridiculous thing about this episode, if you have been following the iPad dilemma that the hosts have been complaining about for a year now, is they never addressed any of the reason why they left the iPad in the first place.
iPadOS is close to the same as it has been for the last two years. The hate and continuous complaining that Apple hasn’t done anything is no where to be found in this episode at all. Strange.
Which proves the point I was making all along. Apples focus on Macs made everyone who loves Apple products very interested in Mac. Even the iPad Power Users wanted to use the Mac and found themselves in a dilemma of being a iPad-only person but wanting to use a Mac.
So they all shit on the iPad for over a year to justify them using Macs again and abandoning the iPad, instead of, you know, just recognizing both products as great and sometimes preference comes into play.
This return to using the iPad lot more again, for Viticci he’s back to full on iPad-only, feels gross. No mention of the issues they had before and Mike even off-hand mentioned the M-series Macs caused him to go crazy for Mac’s again.
But the yearlong shitting on iPad and iPadOS is no longer an issue. I guess only when a new OLED display is introduced because apparently that solves everything.
Castro Surprise
Castro Pumpkin App
I was looking at my App Library and in the corner of my eye saw a cute app icon that I never noticed before. A pumpkin appeared, and was curious what app that was?
It was Castro! An app I have been a little frustrated with, causing me to move back to Overcast, but this app icon change was a special surprise I didn’t expect.
I have no plan to move back to Castro, but I’m happy it is getting some well needed love.