I am certainly not anything close to your ideal contributor, but here’s why I decided to stop using Medium.

WHY DO I WRITE?

Writing is important to me, but I guess for different reasons than for most folks. I do it for myself. I am not interested in making money, or being famous, but I write as if these are my goals. It’s really a personal exercise, and much more inward-facing, than looking out.

I don’t charge (or expect others to pay) for my writing, and am quite aware that most folks find no value at all, in most of my work (including my software development).

WHY MEDIUM?

I liked the fact that Medium provided an SEO-friendly substrate for my writing. I’m a working engineer, and my writing is a side gig. I am glad to have things taken care of for me.

Although I am quite capable of “rolling my own,” wrt creating a Web site, it’s a distraction from what I really want to do, which is create world-class Apple applications. I enjoy writing. It helps me, more than anyone else, and Medium gave me a “one-stop shop.” Before Medium (and after), I have used fairly basic WordPress sites, with minimal customization, as a platform for my writing.

There are many frustrations with Medium, wrt to formatting and dashboard/editing stuff, but they aren’t crippling. I work within boundaries all the time. I know that it is not a technical writing platform, and most of what I do is technical writing, so beggars can’t be choosers.

WHY I STOPPED USING MEDIUM.

Because of this story[0, 1].

When Medium arbitrarily slapped a paywall on my free, open, and public writing, I realized that you guys believe that you own the material that I publish using your platform. The fact that I pay (admittedly a fairly token amount) to post this stuff, means nothing.

It’s my writing. Not. Yours. PERIOD.

Since you guys have control of the platform, you hold all the cards. I’m a relatively “bit” player, and cannot expect any special treatment. In fact, I consider this very screed to be nothing but a fart in a tornado (I write in the vernacular).

But you did step up, which I appreciate, and I believe that it would be disingenuous to complain privately, if there’s even a chance that I might make a difference.

If Medium ever changes back to something that is useful to me again, I might consider using it. I maintain my subscription, because there’s stuff up there, and I don’t feel like going through the agita of changing all the callouts in my stuff[2].

Thanks for stepping up.

[0] https://medium.com/chrismarshallny/the-curious-case-of-the-p...

[1] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/swiftwater/the-curio... (non-paywalled version)

[2] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/