I am a Developer Advocate for Security in Mobile Apps and APIs at approov.io.
Another passion is the Elixir programming language that was designed to be concurrent, distributed and fault tolerant.
Location
Scotland
Education
Self teached Developer
Work
Developer Advocate for Mobile and API Security at approov.io
Their revenue model is simple, readers pay \$5 a month, and while interacting with content, funds get distributed to the pieces they interact with.
While their model can look good for writers and some readers, it's expensive in my opinion as a reader. I am not willing to pay $5 a month for Medium, but if they asked me only $1 then I would pay it.
If I would accept this tendency of charging $5 for some of the paid services in the internet, then in the end of the month I would pay more than I pay now for my mobile plan, home internet and Netflix.
So I don't mind to pay, but be more reasonable with the prices, because $1 for 10 services is $10, but at $5 each will be $50.
This is a problem inherent to the aggregated subscription model, you pay for the whole bundle, not the stuff you want.
Unfortunately there is a reason ads have been so dominant as a source of income on the internet.
I am a Developer Advocate for Security in Mobile Apps and APIs at approov.io.
Another passion is the Elixir programming language that was designed to be concurrent, distributed and fault tolerant.
Location
Scotland
Education
Self teached Developer
Work
Developer Advocate for Mobile and API Security at approov.io
When I pay £8 pounds for the whole bundle of Netflix, I feel that I have a huge return for what I am paying for, despite that I only use a fraction of the bundle.
Now paying $5 dollars for Medium, just feels to pricier.
Unfortunately there is a reason ads have been so dominant as a source of income on the internet.
Bloggers are now starting to use the sponsor model, and the security researcher Troy Hunt was the one I came aware first. You can read more about his journey to drop ads here.
Publications in the likes of Medium must drop a lot their price model, otherwise they will reach only a fraction of the paid audience that they could potentially reach with a cheapest price model.
If they do their jobs right, they should have determined the best price point to maximize profits. You can optimize your profits or you can optimize your reach. Subscription methods don't offer both, ads do.
I'm not saying I like ads, they are bad for lots of reasons, but the reality is that they make a lot of business sense (though not for every business).
It all comes down to value and time imo. I was like yourself and initially thought the price of Medium was steep. As time went on I found myself getting blocked by the paywall more and more on pieces I wanted to read. This led me to believe the service was worth the price and now I pay for the subscription.
I am a Developer Advocate for Security in Mobile Apps and APIs at approov.io.
Another passion is the Elixir programming language that was designed to be concurrent, distributed and fault tolerant.
Location
Scotland
Education
Self teached Developer
Work
Developer Advocate for Mobile and API Security at approov.io
The pay wall they impose to me each time I try to read an article, just makes me hit the button to close that window, and its one of the reasons I use now DEV instead of Medium.
Hackernoon left Medium and some bloggers are doing it so... something must not be right with them.
In my case is not a question of if I can pay, its I just that think is to expensive.
Mhm, I address this sort of in the piece here saying that free content should exist and there is nothing wrong with that. Having a paywall goes two ways, pays the people who are creating value for the readers but also blocks people without the funds. Having both dev.to and Medium popular is a win for the internet :)
I am a Developer Advocate for Security in Mobile Apps and APIs at approov.io.
Another passion is the Elixir programming language that was designed to be concurrent, distributed and fault tolerant.
Location
Scotland
Education
Self teached Developer
Work
Developer Advocate for Mobile and API Security at approov.io
Having a paywall goes two ways, pays the people who are creating value for the readers but also blocks people without the funds.
Just to be clear I am not against Medium paying writers with the money that comes from the paid readers, by the contrary I like it. I just don't like the price asked to me.
Maybe by charging $5 for each reader they only get n paid readers, but if they charged $1 they may got n x 10 paid readers... just my 2 cents!!!
I am a Developer Advocate for Security in Mobile Apps and APIs at approov.io.
Another passion is the Elixir programming language that was designed to be concurrent, distributed and fault tolerant.
Location
Scotland
Education
Self teached Developer
Work
Developer Advocate for Mobile and API Security at approov.io
My Firefox browser is configure to no keep history after I close a tab/window, thus Medium is not showing me the paywall that often now, but anyway I am not going there that often nowadays, but I already have used incognito with them in the past.
While their model can look good for writers and some readers, it's expensive in my opinion as a reader. I am not willing to pay $5 a month for Medium, but if they asked me only $1 then I would pay it.
If I would accept this tendency of charging $5 for some of the paid services in the internet, then in the end of the month I would pay more than I pay now for my mobile plan, home internet and Netflix.
So I don't mind to pay, but be more reasonable with the prices, because $1 for 10 services is $10, but at $5 each will be $50.
This is a problem inherent to the aggregated subscription model, you pay for the whole bundle, not the stuff you want.
Unfortunately there is a reason ads have been so dominant as a source of income on the internet.
When I pay £8 pounds for the whole bundle of Netflix, I feel that I have a huge return for what I am paying for, despite that I only use a fraction of the bundle.
Now paying $5 dollars for Medium, just feels to pricier.
Bloggers are now starting to use the sponsor model, and the security researcher Troy Hunt was the one I came aware first. You can read more about his journey to drop ads here.
Publications in the likes of Medium must drop a lot their price model, otherwise they will reach only a fraction of the paid audience that they could potentially reach with a cheapest price model.
If they do their jobs right, they should have determined the best price point to maximize profits. You can optimize your profits or you can optimize your reach. Subscription methods don't offer both, ads do.
I'm not saying I like ads, they are bad for lots of reasons, but the reality is that they make a lot of business sense (though not for every business).
It all comes down to value and time imo. I was like yourself and initially thought the price of Medium was steep. As time went on I found myself getting blocked by the paywall more and more on pieces I wanted to read. This led me to believe the service was worth the price and now I pay for the subscription.
The pay wall they impose to me each time I try to read an article, just makes me hit the button to close that window, and its one of the reasons I use now DEV instead of Medium.
Hackernoon left Medium and some bloggers are doing it so... something must not be right with them.
In my case is not a question of if I can pay, its I just that think is to expensive.
Mhm, I address this sort of in the piece here saying that free content should exist and there is nothing wrong with that. Having a paywall goes two ways, pays the people who are creating value for the readers but also blocks people without the funds. Having both dev.to and Medium popular is a win for the internet :)
Just to be clear I am not against Medium paying writers with the money that comes from the paid readers, by the contrary I like it. I just don't like the price asked to me.
Maybe by charging $5 for each reader they only get
npaid readers, but if they charged $1 they may gotn x 10paid readers... just my 2 cents!!!"getting blocked by the paywall more and more on pieces I wanted to read" -> incognito
My Firefox browser is configure to no keep history after I close a tab/window, thus Medium is not showing me the paywall that often now, but anyway I am not going there that often nowadays, but I already have used incognito with them in the past.
I think $5 a month for a whole bunch of head food is quite reasonable.