How Medium Spends Your $5

Mysteries of the algorithm revealed

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Author’s Note: This was written before the model changed to reward for reading rather than applauding, and then changed again to compensate writers for bringing in new subscriptions. So how does the algorithm work now? It’s anybody’s guess! Still, the experiment outlined below is interesting and sheds some light.

I’ve been posting on Medium for about a year and a half. For the first six months, I didn’t give it much attention. I had posted a story on Facebook, and a friend commented that it deserved a wider readership. She suggested Medium. At the time, I’d never even heard of Medium. It took awhile just to find it. I posted my first story in January of 2018, and not many people read it. A year and a half later, “Sally’s Wedding,” a story about the grief I feel over the “normal” life my son lost when he developed a major mental illness at age 18, has 136 views, 82 reads, and 3 fans. I didn’t post another story until May.

Sally's Wedding

For the second half of 2018, I posted about one story a month, with similar results. Then in September…