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What My First Medium Paycheck Taught Me
This morning, I opened up an email saying I got my payment statement from Medium today.
I expected it to be in the cents range, if it was anything at all.
It was $9.52.
It was shocked and startled.
I love writing. I’ve been writing for a decade. On Quora, I wrote thousands of answers for free. If I’d written those on here instead, I’d probably have thousands of dollars.
Crazy.
I don’t regret my time on Quora. It taught me a lot, and I got several jobs from it.
That being said, it also sucked me in and spit me back out, and I hurtled through the air and crashed into Medium’s waiting arms, which snapped me up and bribed me into staying.
Funny how Quora tells good writers that they need to leave, and Medium tells good writers that they can get paid for doing what they love most.
I think it’s important for Medium to incentivize its writers, because they clamor to give the people what they want as a result. I personally like to write for the sake of writing. The money is definitely an added bonus, but it’s not the sole reason for why I’m here (though it’s an important contributing factor as to why I chose Medium over other sites).
So, since I’ll be writing more for my enjoyment than for the money, I’ll be writing about topics that appeal to me and might not necessarily appeal to as many readers. As a result, I might get less money, but I’ll be happier. I’ll be less sycophantic, less formal — like I wrote on Quora.
It’s a good lesson on materialism.
