I’ve made more money on Medium in the last three months than I did in the 18 months prior. The platform isn’t transparent about how it distributes money. Fortunately for me, whatever they’ve changed is currently to my benefit. I know other writers who are doing better than ever, too.

Medium made it clear that it was shifting its focus away from publications to individual writers. The company laid off the very well paid editors of its own publications.

Some of the publications you mentioned abandoned the platform because Medium used to pay their editors a regular fee to be here in addition to what the stories they published brought in and it no longer does. They had, what I consider to be, an unfair advantage over the numerous publications whose editors put in just as much time for nothing.

The MWC was a subscription drive and since the subscribers it attracted are mostly writers, it’s no longer as dependent on some of the top writers making five figures a month. It wants to keep its new subscribers and get them to encourage their friends to join, so I suspect the algorithm has been tweaked to favor the newbies and other writers who it thinks can keep eyes on the pages.

Ev Williams net worth is 2.3 billion. He can afford to experiment with the platform to his heart’s content an no doubt will continue to do so. Every time he does, there are winners and losers. The big losers are leaving for what they hope will be greener pastures. They’re writing books, starting podcasts, and hawking newsletter subscriptions and classes. All this gives others a chance to emerge as the next big thing, until the platform changes or ceases to operate altogether. It’s a lesson to us all to have more than one iron in the fire.