My 1-Year Anniversary On Medium

December marks my anniversary since I joined Medium. I am having a wonderful time reading stories and writing my own. Medium has exposed me to some marvelous people I wish to meet in person. 

I know that my writing has improved this last year, but I still have a long way to go. Practice makes perfect. 

I love Medium, but I am also a realist, or, as some prefer, a pessimist. Medium is nothing more than a tool for all of us. It isn't Medium that writes the stories. It isn't Medium who sends words of support and wisdom to aspiring writers. 

For me, Medium is what I already described: a place for me to read wonderful stories and try to create my own. But to others, Medium is a means to make money from writing. I have no problem with that approach, but it isn't for me. I rarely check my “earnings,” but the only statistic worth mentioning is that I only made $4 one time in my entire year. That doesn't bother me. I'm obviously not a good enough writer to make that kind of money. I'm OK with that, but I sense a shift in Medium towards supporting the profitable writers first. Since I'm not a shareholder, I don't get a vote on things like that; when I was in the Navy, we’d say that decisions like those were above our pay grade.

As the new membership tiers arrive on Medium, I must smile and say no thanks. I can't afford the huge price increase. I'll stick with my current plan until they phase it out.