Does Buying A Medium Membership Help You Grow On Medium In 2024
let’s find out
One of the most common questions I often get asked is: Will buying a Medium membership help me grow? Let’s find it out in today’s story.
Medium runs on a subscription-based business model. The more people buy the Medium membership, the more money Medium makes. Simple!
But why do people buy a Medium subscription?
To get a little golden star attached to their profile logo? Ops! that’s a pride. But actually, that’s not what people buy a Medium membership for. So for what? To read metered stories — the stories you can’t get access to without a Medium membership.
Medium membership allows you to read metered stories written by writers who have joined the Medium Partner Program to make money from their stories on Medium.
Sounds complicated?
See, you buy a Medium membership, which costs you $5 (199 rs for Indians from the mobile app) per month. So now you have the Medium membership, meaning you get access to read the metered stories.
When you do it, the writers earn money from your “Reading” and Medium sends some proportion of your Medium membership money to the writer’s pocket and keeps the majority of the stake.
This is how writers, who are eligible for the Medium Partner Program and Medium make money on Medium lol. And you? Of course, you lose money!
So what’s the main use case of buying a Medium membership?
If I’m pretty straight: A Medium membership does nothing but just allow you to read the metered stories. Nothing more, nothing less. If you think buying a Medium membership will help you grow on Medium — you’re dead wrong, my friend. It doesn’t do anything like that. It doesn’t help!
How confident am I in saying this?
See, I gained the majority of followers when I didn’t have a Medium subscription. If I have 6,000 followers (close to ;) I can say, the 4,000 followers came when I didn’t have a Medium membership.
And to date, I believe it doesn't help you grow on Medium. Nada. It doesn’t increase your views. It doesn’t give you more claps or comments. It doesn’t give you more followers or more exposure on the platform.
But then you ask: If that’s the case, should I buy a Medium membership then?
To be honest, the answer will vary depending on who you are.
If you’re someone who spends too much time reading other people’s stories on Medium, then there is no other option for you than buying a Medium membership.
Why? Because the majority of the stories you read on Medium happen to be metered. The only writers writing on this platform are the ones who have joined the Medium Partner Program.
I know we can debate on this point!
But if you’re like me, who spends less than 5 minutes a day reading other people’s stories on Medium, you’re better off not buying a Medium membership. Why? Because you having a membership and not reading stories on Medium is nothing but wasting your hard-earned money.
Does that make sense?
What’s funny though, just a few days ago, I canceled my Medium subscriptions after paying them for six consecutive months. Was it worth it? Certainly not, because I didn’t use the benefits.
And then you say, ohh…but you should support Medium!
Lemme ask you: Do they us, writers who have been waiting to join the Medium Partner Program since July 2023 but haven’t been able to — to date?
