I write on Medium to express myself and build an audience for something bigger. Not for the money.

Let me start in a boring way. Something is wrong with Medium. Check out my referred members' earnings:

This fall in referred members is unrelated to my writing — unless I misunderstand something about Medium’s workings. Readers signed up for Medium because they came across one of my stories. They’re now leaving because they are not finding Medium worth their five bucks. My writing is not worth their five dollars either.

I’m not going to talk about Medium’s other stats. When I started writing, I promised I’d never join the ranks of authors documenting their earnings.

I do care about Medium earnings to some extent. They are a nice bonus, and there were months when they enormously contributed to my budget.

But everyone who’s been writing on Medium for a meaningful period knows that the earnings are volatile. You can’t make a living by relying on your stories going viral.

So why write another story complaining about falling earnings or even readership?

One reason I write on Medium is that I like expressing what’s on my mind. I write because I like writing. Express to who? Well, I don’t know. Build it, they will come is my mindset.