Dear Medium,

My preferences and advice to make the site more enjoyable

Photo by Toni Koraza on Unsplash

I wish I had more time to spend on Medium, but between taking care of an elderly person while I don’t have a car, writing my book (or editing), taking courses to become a better writer, taking care of a home and a whole bunch of other things, my time on Medium is limited. Therefore, it should not be a surprise that when I do get a chance to come on here, I want something good to read.

I recently had about an hour to spend reading. I opened Medium and found my home page flooded with articles from one person. Out of 20+ articles that I looked at, 14 were from the same author. I had to check out this person.

They publish about 3–4 articles a day!!!

No wonder the articles were not good.

I sat down and calculated how long it takes me to write an article, assuming I am writing about something that I already know, i.e. I’ve already done the research. Even if I could spend 40 hours a week on Medium, the most I could publish is about 3000–5000 words a week; whether one article or multiple articles.

On the other hand, even with everything that’s going on in my life, I could sit down and publish one bad article a day.

Now, like most people on Medium, I would like to make money off my articles, however, I am also here to show what kind of person/writer I am, and I am here as a reader as well.

I do NOT want to waste my time on bad articles as a writer or a reader.

If I have to waste my time searching for quality articles because my home page is flooded with bad articles, I’ll go someplace else where I don’t pay to read. Bad articles are all over the place. I can find those for free everywhere. So on Medium, I do expect better quality.

This made me wonder about other people, perhaps those who might join Medium as readers but haven’t done so yet. Would they pay to read articles on Medium if they are attracted to one good article and then flooded with bad articles? Doubt it.

I have thought about journalists and how long it takes them, professionals, to put out an article. Even they can’t do 3 articles in a day. So how can anyone?