Medium Will Now Pay Writers Based On How Many 'Claps' They Get (theverge.com) 135
Medium is getting creative with how they're paying its writers. The San Francisco-based online publishing platform will determine how much an author is paid by how many claps a story receives. Claps are basically Medium's equivalent of a Like, and they recently replaced the "recommend" feature -- a little heart button at the end of each article. The Verge reports: The site wants people to send authors claps to show how much they enjoy reading each article. Now, those claps are actually going to mean something. Medium pays authors by dividing up every individual subscriber's fee between the different articles they've read that month. But rather than doing an even division between articles, Medium will weight payments toward whichever articles a subscriber gives the most claps to. It's not clear exactly how much each individual clap tips the scale, but you can be sure that writers will be asking readers to click that button. It's a pretty strange way to implement payments, since it relies on a really arbitrary metric that individual subscribers might use in really different and inconsistent ways. Time spent on page and whether someone shared an article probably would have been useful metrics by which to tell how much a reader enjoyed a piece, but maybe that makes too much sense for a startup in the middle of its second business model pivot. On the positive side, claps can help Medium surface content that people are enjoying and get it in front of more readers.
Re: Medium (Score:5, Funny)
It's a newspaper in San Francisco for the LGBTQ2SN community. So it's appropriate that writers get paid based on how many of their readers get the clap.
Re: (Score:1)
"2SN"? What's this latest addition to the freak show?
Re: (Score:1)
It's customary to add a letter at random. So every time you use the acronym, add one more letter over the last time you used it. Otherwise I'd have to complain to the GP about lack of "A" and "I" and a few others in there, that insensitive clod.
Re: (Score:2)
No it's not. It's LGBTQP+BBQ+UTC&A
Re: Medium (Score:1)
I prefer "GayBLT".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Medium (Score:1)
LBGTQ2SN? What repressed deviant group is the "N" for?
Re: Medium (Score:1)
The N word you xenophobic monster!
Re: Medium (Score:4)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Medium (Score:5, Funny)
And of those, how many care?
I care. I am going to sign up as a writer, whip up a Selenium script to "clap" my articles, and then write myself a minivan [dilbert.com]. If that doesn't work, I will hire clappers on Mechanical Turk.
Re: (Score:1)
isnt it easier to hire Chinese clappers
Many MT workers are from India, Pakistan, and the Philippines. All have lower median wages than China. China isn't so cheap anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For a while, not so long ago, one of their bloggers would submitl every post from their blog as a proposed Slashdot story. I got really tired of seeing medium.com all over the firehose (and even on the main page).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
dunno but they are sure to get lots of trollish "EVERYONE MUST READ THIS AND SHARE!!!" and cutesy cat stuff articles from now on..
Mob justice all the way (Score:5, Insightful)
Who else bets that the frothing-at-the-mouth angry SJW articles (and their right-wing equivalents, I guess) will always get a ton of claps? (Claps? chlamydias? kek!)
This is a good way to marginalize reasonable authors that tell the difficult truths, and pander to the lowest common mob drone from your favourite group of idiots.
Re:Mob justice all the way (Score:4, Informative)
Ironically, they're extremely vocal about video games and movies yet they never buy or watch them...
Re: (Score:1)
Ironically, they're extremely vocal about video games and movies yet they never buy or watch them...
Not ironic in their world. To even see what you are critical of is to normalize or give power to it. Read both here on slashdot as excuses for refusing to read the Google Memo.
Re: Mob justice all the way (Score:1)
Ironically, they're extremely vocal about video games and movies yet they never buy or watch them...
Isn't it ironic; like meeting the man of your dreams, and his beautiful, beautiful wife?
No Chris, you fucking moron, that isn't irony.
Re: (Score:2)
Can't we make peace, not war?
Re: (Score:2)
Seems like it would be rather hypocritical of them to support an industry they are complaining about.
Maybe if someone made a game or movie to their tastes they might be more inclined to purchase.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That only matters if you're in the business of difficult truths and avoiding the lowest common denominator. I don't know that's Medium's business, is it? I wouldn't judge Mad Magazine against that criteria.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess you are new to the Internet? Because the angry vocal shitheads are more likely racist, sexist idiots than the SJW strawmen people like you (=idiots) try to portrait as the standard. Whatever...
Peak clickbait has arrived. (Score:1)
And I for one am excited to see where this takes us.
That can't possibly be abused. (Score:2, Insightful)
So whoever writes the most drivel that gets the most Facebook postings to drive more people to the site gets all the money each month. A writer could even pay people's subscriptions for a few months, since most of it would come back to them as payment. After building up a small following, they could just keep writing the same drivel and get the same claps, without having to payout the seed money anymore.
It's like a multi-player computer game I played once, based on a small business model. The person who sun
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
I'll bet if you think about what you just wrote, you'll start to see why it's stupid.
I don't want to spoi
Re:That can't possibly be abused. (Score:5, Interesting)
The truth is very often undesirable and boring. So they will be paying more for artful lies. Want a system that works, treat your audience like children. Give them some pocket play money to spend, a set allowance each time period (longer time periods require more careful thought so 24hour vs 48 hour vs 7 days) and that they can spend with whom they wish. Allow them to earn extra play money by buying stuff with real money and they can spend that play money as they wish. Those authors who they choose to spend their play money with, earn real money. Selling stuff seems to work better than advertising stuff, in the current era. Advertising seems to be spending big to gain very little sales because once you are on the internet, you see and interesting item you might be interested in and you, well, immediately use the internet to compare it to competitors and find it is over priced shite with a big advertising product and you don't buy it. The only advertising that works for me, is when I am actually shopping and something is on special and I check it out (compare with competitors) and that special is actually worthwhile, that is it. Trying to squeeze marketing dollars out of that does not leave much space. Spend more on the product and less on advertising and you are more likely to win the sale.
... It's not clear exactly how... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
He also avoid claps by being a terrible writer.
I may be a terrible writer but at least I make money at being a terrible writer. I wouldn't make money with Medium. If I want to give my work away for free, I would publish at Fictionaut [fictionaut.com].
Re: (Score:1)
We know your heart is in the right place. You don't want to entertain, write well, or tell an interesting story; you prefer vomiting on your keyboard and tricking people out of a few dollars.
Thank you for the Stephen King reference. : p
Re: (Score:2)
People told him he was a bad writer because he chose to write "scary" books - stories about monsters and ghosts, latter-day fairy tales.
Uh, no. The fact that Stephen King made a shitload of money is why he got cared a "bad writer" over the years. If he hade made no money, no one would have cared. America has a literary tradition that anyone who writes for money and/or popular with the masses must be a hack. I'm honored to wear that badge, especially if it pisses off my merry band of trolls on Slashdot.
Re: (Score:1)
I'm not pissed off, I'm genuinely fascinated that someone who misses all of Stephen King's points about writing seems to fancy himself a kind of "King 2.0."
I'm genuinely fascinated by trolls who waste their time responding to my comments, especially after I made it clear that I'm not interested in their opinions.
Re: (Score:2)
You're also not interested in your reader's reviews...
Reader's reviews should always be taken with a grain of salt, especially when the reviews are too negative or too positive.
Re: (Score:2)
But what if overall you have many negative reviews, and other people also laugh at you?
Being the proverbial fat boy on the short bus (a.k.a, fat retard [bit.ly]), I'm used to negative reactions and being laughed at.
At what point can it become possible in your mind that you're a bad writer?
Never. Being a writer means you have to continuously improve yourself. What you write today won't be as good as something you write ten years from now.
Re: (Score:2)
But it's clear that you are interested, creimer.
I'm always interested whenever a troll starts a thread [slashdot.org] that I'm not a part of by making a snide comment about my sexuality.
Re: (Score:2)
How is that a trolling attempt? More reasonable than the pile of shit you posted (opinion without reasoning nor facts to back it up). And you obviously do care as you not only read the above post but replied to it.
So you are a hypocritical poster claiming to be spamming (=posting without being interested in a debate). Yeah. We call those trolls.
Re: (Score:2)
How is that a trolling attempt?
Because this is the fourth, fifth or sixth time that this particular AC told me that my writing sucks and then writes paragraphs about a literary debate I'm not interested in having.
Re: (Score:2)
You are such a piece of shit and 100x worst than any troll I've seen here.
No, that would be the person who posted dick pics with my contact info.
Re: (Score:2)
On a non-writing topic, this website will save your life: https://intensivedietarymanage... [intensived...gement.com] [intensived...gement.com] I recommend starting here [intensived...gement.com], then reading around. There's many article series, with intermittent fasting being the most important.
What makes you think I would be interested in this unsolicited advice?
Re: (Score:2)
On a non-writing topic, this website will save your life: https://intensivedietarymanage... [intensived...gement.com] [intensived...gement.com]
I recommend starting here [intensived...gement.com], then reading around. There's many article series, with intermittent fasting being the most important.
What makes you think I would be interested in this unsolicited advice?
What makes you think I would be interested in unsolicited advice about books and other stuff?
Re: (Score:2)
What makes you think I would be interested in unsolicited advice about books and other stuff?
As of yesterday, 3,525 clicks from interested Slashdotters so far this month.
Re: (Score:2)
We think you need it, just like you think we need your constant shitposting.
That's where you're wrong. My product recommendations are optional and can be freely ignore. Unsolicited advice about a person's health is usually an attempt to put yourself above that person, and, when that unsolicited advice is rejected out of hand as it should be, you will feel entitled to bitch at that person for not doing things your way. I got two words: suck it.
Re: (Score:2)
If you are "proud" to be fat, or too closed-minded to deviate from conventional diet advice, then by all means ignore it. Your loss.
When I had to take care of my father for two months after he had an episode that put him in the hospital, he had to got a diabetic nutrition class and go on a low-carb diet (150g per day). Since company loves misery, I had to take to him to class and go on the same diet. My father went off of insulin in six months because of the diet. I'm still on the low-carb diet after five years. I recently lost ten pounds and plateaued out at 360 pounds. And life goes on...
Re: (Score:2)
[...] when your weight makes you a public freak show and impacts your lifespan/quality of life [...]
Only on Slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
What about slow claps (Score:1)
Autoclap.org (Score:2)
And cue the ... (Score:3)
... bots.
Re: (Score:2)
Next headline about Medium is that it's funds are Low and it's going Under.
Re: (Score:1)
What would the bots even do? Medium is weighing where an individual subscribers fees go according to articles that individual subscriber 'clapped'.
Re: (Score:2)
... individual subscriber 'clapped' ...
Clapperbot @ 2017 CaptainDork
Re: (Score:2)
If the only people who can clap have to be paid subscribers, then a simple calculation of how much money you will get by creating multiple accounts for the "bots" and the amount of money you would make getting "claps" would determine whether it was wor
Medium ... (Score:1)
... kinda rare.
Ad Revenue sharing fairness (Score:2)
Clap ? (Score:1)
Thank you, but no.
crowdsourced (Score:2)
What's the chance the payouts will be determined in a fair, transparent, non-partisan manner?
What's the chance this is just a way for the VC cabal who own Medium to crowdsource some hysterical anti-worker propaganda?
all articles need same level of journalism (Score:2)
It's not like pay-per-click or 'like' or whatever hasn't been tried before. Probably hundreds have tried it.
Journalism. That's the "problem" in a sense. If you want actual journalism, you need an article that gets 2000 clicks to have the same level of journalistic quality as one that gets 20000000.
Journalism all needs to be of a minimum level of quality. In a free market economy there will be a fair market price for that minimum level.
Unless the pay-per-clap
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. But in this new brave world appearance is everything and medium obviously thinks that's great.
Great (Score:1)
It was inevitable (Score:3)
Ad-revenue driven websites have been in a race to the bottom, happily abandoning any sort of meaningful content in favor of clickbait that generates revenue. Switching the pay for the writers over to a formula derived from the number of clicks they generate is just the next step in that process.
Re: (Score:1)
It sounds like it may be even worse than that. Someone isn't likely to "clap" unless they agree with an article, so it will be maximum echo chamber as writers tailor content for their readers viewpoints.
I've never gotten the clap... (Score:2)
And I never want to get it again!
What a brilliantly stupid idea. (Score:2, Insightful)
Did they even *try* to think that through?
Say goodbye to any topic that is even vaguely controversial.
Say hello to authors that harshly compete with one another, and potentially even start backstabbing one another.
The bottom line is that their quality will sink faster than... a very... fast... sinking... thing. *whistles*. (I was gonna say Trumps career but I'm sure everyone else is as sick to death about just reading that name, as I am...)
Maybe they could have done this as a bonus on top of a basic salary
I can't wait (Score:3)
Claps? (Score:2)
I thought they were asking me to give them crap!