Medium Used to Be a Library with a Soul. Now It’s a Monetized Megaphone.

New, insightful stories? Personal essays that feel like diary pages accidentally published? Unhinged, late-night thought dumps that accidentally go viral?

Or mostly:

• “Why I Keep Writing Even When I Don’t Want To”

• “How I Made $3,000 in 30 Days on Medium”

• “Writing Is the Best Skill to Learn in 2025 (Here’s Why)”

• “Top 10 Blogging Platforms Ranked (While I’m Blogging On One)”

• “Earn Money Through Writing by Writing About Earning Money Through Writing”

It’s like Medium got bitten by a radioactive LinkedIn post and forgot it used to have a soul.

The Shift We All Felt (But Never Announced)

Medium didn’t crash and burn. It changed quietly.

It shifted from a place where people wrote to a place where people contented.

(Yes, I made “content” a verb. That’s what it feels like now.)

There was a time when Medium was delightfully messy. Writers posted things they weren’t sure anyone would read, let alone “clap” for. Now, many posts read like keyword-optimized, emoji-punctuated pitches for a product that doesn’t exist yet.

Even the personal essays feel like sales decks — vulnerability neatly packaged with a five-step guide and a call to subscribe.

When Writing Becomes Strategy, It Stops Being Human

I’m not against structure. I’m not anti-SEO. I’m just… anti-robotic.

Anti-“everyone-sounds-the-same.”

It’s hard to find the why in your writing when the how is constantly whispering:

“Make it listy. Make it clickable. Make it like theirs.”

But writing — real writing — was never supposed to be optimized.

It was supposed to be unpredictable. Personal. Sometimes totally pointless.

Remember “pointless” essays?

We used to call them honest.

The Hobbyists Were the Heart

The best Medium posts weren’t always helpful. They were weird. They were:

• A pilot writing about their favorite airport lounges.

• A powerlifter reviewing FitNotes like it’s holy scripture.

• A stranger sharing an oddly moving story about a single lunch with their dad.

These weren’t posts written for engagement.

They were written to get something out.

No agenda. No funnel. Just thought to text.

But now that everything’s optimized for “value,” people write for virality — not voice.

And that’s a loss.

The Future of Writing on Medium: Will the Weird Survive?

Here’s the part where I pretend to know the future. Spoiler: I don’t. But let’s speculate — because the current path is pretty clear.

Medium, as of now, favors professionalized posts with “value delivery systems” (translation: tidy lists, how-tos, personal brands with affiliate links). According to their editorial updates, they’re doubling down on curation — which often just means elevating safe, SEO-savvy content.

But that leaves hobbyists,messy writers, late-night diarists, genre-benders on the sidelines. Or worse: off-platform.

Which brings me to Vocal. I uploaded the exact same blog to Vocal and got more views organically than I ever did on Medium. No tags, no Member Reads, no “distribution boost.” Just readers.

Vocal is flawed, sure — it’s ad-heavy and not nearly as sleek. But it doesn’t pretend to be a literary utopia. And somehow, that honesty creates space for stranger stuff. For the kind of writing that doesn’t try to teach or sell. It just tells.

So here’s my hot take: if Medium keeps drifting toward productivity-post purgatory, hobbyists will migrate. Maybe not en masse, maybe not loudly — but one by one, they’ll go. To Vocal. To Substack. To personal blogs. To zines stapled at 3AM and mailed in secret.

Or maybe they’ll stay — but write like ghosts, invisible to the algorithm.

My dream Medium? One where personal essays, absurd rants, poetry, and niche reviews are as valued as the tenth post this week about “how to make money writing posts.” One where weirdness isn’t just tolerated — it’s featured.

One where you don’t need a growth strategy to deserve a reader.

If You’re Still Here, Writing for No Reason, You’re Not Alone

If you’re still posting your little blog-style essays into the void — without a strategy, niche, or monetization plan — you’re my kind of writer.

If you still log in just to write something weird or real or entirely unnecessary, please keep doing that.

This place needs you more than it needs another “top 5 mindset shifts.”

Not optimizing for growth. Just here to write.

And apparently doing better on Vocal anyway.

Final Thought

No hate to Medium. Honestly, I’m glad I found it.

It inspired me to start my own blog, build a voice, and find other voices like mine.

Medium gave me the courage to treat writing seriously — even when no one was clapping.

So while I may critique the direction, I’m still grateful for the beginning.

And I’ll still be here.

Writing. Probably pointlessly. And that’s kind of the point.