💰 Why I Spend $5 Monthly on Medium

First things first, I want to make it clear that I’m not affiliated with or working for Medium in any way. I’ve always enjoyed reading and writing on the platform, but it wasn’t until lately that I took the plunge and finally subscribed to the premium version — you know, the one that they keep emailing you to sign up for.

This decision wasn’t a total no-brainer for me. Initially, there was two things that were holding me back. First, I’m still in college and therefore I’m not exactly killing it financially at the moment. For this reason, I’m normally a bit stingy when it comes to paying for things that I don’t need. Second, why should I have to pay for content in 2018? We still have the world wide web at our disposal (at least for now) and more free content out there than we know what to do with.

So, what made me change my mind?

The Mission

Arguably the biggest driving factor for me has to be what Medium represents. Ev Williams talks about this more effectively than I ever could. I highly recommend checking out any of his posts for more on this, specifically on the Medium model and how words still matter.

In short, Medium represents a side of journalism that isn’t driven by clickbait and advertising. It’s a free market of content that anyone can utilize in order to share their unique thoughts and perspective.

Personally, I don’t champion too many causes out there, but this is something that I can get behind. Medium has given me a place to be creative, share my thoughts, and develop my writing. Because of this, I almost feel somewhat obligated to give back.

The moment I shifted my perspective and began to view my membership as an investment in the cause itself, rather than a simple value proposition, it became light-years more appealing to me.

The Content

I’ve only been a Medium member for about a month or two now, but I’ve been fairly impressed by the quality of premium content offered. Also, more and more top writers are moving to premium only in the new model.

Great writers, whether they do it for a living or not, deserve to be compensated for their time. This way, they are encouraged to keep writing high quality content. It’s also worth noting that Medium members are on the rise…

I think it’s safe to say that Medium is over the hump and I don’t see growth slowing down any time in the near future. This means that it’s no longer a risky move for writers to take their content over to premium, since there is a large member base there already.

The Improvement

When it comes to spending money on things that will manifest themselves in some kind of self-improvement, I force myself to be liberal with my spending.This applies to courses, books, and other resources that you can’t necessarily access for free.

By putting your income back into your education and improvement, you’re setting yourself up for success in the long-term.

If you’re an aspiring writer or you simply enjoy writing on occasion and would like to do it more, sign up and invest in your practice. Even if you are just a avid reader and find yourself on Medium a good bit, an investment in reading and learning is undoubtedly a sound one.

Similar to how people who know they are paying for a gym membership are more encouraged to go work out, writers can be motivated to write more and readers encouraged to read more, just knowing that they are already paying for the service.

The Price

Not everyone can afford to pay for a subscription that can only be described as a ‘want’ instead of a ‘need’ — shoutout my 2nd grade teacher.

However, there’s a lot of us that can afford it. If you have a Netflix subscription, you’re already spending that amount on content monthly. The only difference is that a Medium subscription is text-based instead of video-based (and you might actually learn something).

This was one of my last major realizations before I finally pulled the trigger and signed up. I decided to cancel my Netflix membership (they took off Always Sunny, anyway) and simply mooch off of my friend’s accounts instead. Sounds like a win win to me.

That’s It for Now

Like I said prior, it hasn’t been all that long since I entered the realm of paying for Medium. My assessment of this investment could a lot change over time. This post was simply intended to capture my reasoning and first impressions while the opinions and effects are fresh. So for now at least, I’ve been impressed and I can only encourage you to look into a membership as well.

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