“Why write for a pittance for your words,” wrote one of them, Keith Parkins, “only to then find no one is reading what you have taken the time
and trouble to write, because it resides within a fenced-off ghetto?”
Medium maintains it is doing well by the metrics it cares about.
“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information
and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” Mr. Williams says.
“If I learn that every time I drive down this road I’m going to see more and more car crashes,” he says, “I’m going to take a different road.”
But a new road may have other problems.
“A beautiful space for reading and writing — and little else,” Mr. Williams called Medium at its public debut in 2012.
He once told Mr. Williams that he had some new ideas about dating sites but feared
that if he tackled them, “I’d be working on the same thing my whole entire life.”
Mr. Williams had pondered for a moment and replied, “I’ve been working on the same thing my whole life.”
Mr. Hong said: “It’s not a vanity project, it’s his calling.
“I think we will fix these things,” Mr. Williams says.
“Write whatever you want, and we’ll pay you based on certain terms,” Mr. Williams says now.
“Ad-driven systems can only reward attention,” Mr. Williams says.