Giving Medium a Piece of My Mind
Last month, the Medium pub The Political Prism announced that it is suspending its operations. I have published about 25 articles on this pub.
The likely reason: The pub’s owner, John Polonis, is tiring of the time required to manage a reasonable Medium pub. It’s probably costing him an hour a day.
For a brief period, I was anointed co-owner of another Medium political pub called Political Speaking, to which I had been submitting my articles. The former owner somehow thought I and a few others would take this pub on. So I was getting emails to approve articles. If they were political in nature and seemed somewhat well written, I approved them. I seldom gave any new article more than a two-minute read. I did not offer suggestions or edits.
Of course, I also approved all my articles I submitted to Politically Speaking.
Somehow Scott Tarlo became owner of Political Speaking. I was happy someone else was doing this job. Scott took a more serious role. He was often finding typos and formatting errors in my work, sometimes giving valuable suggestions to improve certain sentences and paragraphs. As a result of Scott’s diligence, Politically Speaking grew a lot faster, which then meant he needed help. He found two other Medium contributors (Karen Valentino and Joel Ombry) for editing and approving. I estimate the three editors were spending 30 minutes for each article. Given the volume Politically Speaking was churning out, this was a significant part of the day for these three editors.
Eventually Scott suspended Political Speaking. He sounded burned out.
There is a pattern here
Like Medium writers, Medium pubs come and go. There is a high turnover on both.
After almost seven years, I’m still here even though I am still a bottom writer. I stay because Medium has been my best forum for getting some reaction to my alternative democracy. My showings on other internet forums are far more dismal.
There are two other reasons I have stayed on Medium. I have found about 20–30 writers who I enjoy following. I have been entertained and educated by these writers. The second reason is it is kind of nice getting a few Medium shekels every month. Even the little bit I am getting is an ego boost.
So I suspect many pub owners need an ego boost as well. They just might stay around longer.
Cutting the pub owners into the deal
I advocate (once again) for pub owners to get a cut. I say 20% of the Medium royalty, with the writer getting the other 80%.
If writers do not like sharing with the pub owner, the writer can publish independently and keep 100%.
In exchange for getting the 20%, the pub owners need to build their pubs such that they are attractive to readers. Readers go to these pubs because they know they can find the kind of articles they are looking for. Writers can connect with more readers by being in the right pub than by publishing independently.
And that should be how this Medium system should work, right?
While I can say that my articles on various pubs do better than my independent publishing, that difference is small. The extra readership (maybe 25%) is not worth the extra effort for me to publish in a pub. I have written a statistical article on this comparison.
Do Medium Pubs Enhance Readership?
If the pub owners are not getting a royalty payment, why should they put in a greater effect? Scott Tarlo put in an above average effort — and he burned out.
A Previous Medium Relationship
Early in my Medium sojourn, Medium contributor Shelly Fagan offered me some free editing help. To prove her point, she rewrote one of my articles. It was noticeably better. I could have learned more about effective writing under her mentorship.
But I was new to Medium, still trying to figure out how Medium worked. My mindset was somewhere between being suspicious of her motivations and not wanting to take advantage of her good nature. Not the first time I threw away mentorship in my career. I don’t know why I do these things.
But if Shelly had her own pub generating a financial reward for her, I might have been more accepting of her help.
Imagine Shelley setting up a pub to help writers to improve their writing skills. Her pub’s guidelines might say something like this:
Expect your article to pass between us at least four times. I will offer suggestions, which we will discuss. These interactions take time. At least a week will be required before I agree to publish. If you want something quicker, please take your article to another pub.
If Shelley gets 20% of the royalties, she has financial incentive to provide this service. Not only that, Shelley’s pub would become known for its high-quality writing. More readers would come to her pub. She would get more Medium revenue than if she put in an average effort in editing.
And some writers would be accepting of Shelly’s methods — if they knew they would get twice (or more) the traction compared to other pubs or independent publishing. And they would also get some feedback to become better writers.
I have published on 10 or so different Medium pubs. I have not seen a mentor-type of editor/writer relationship. While Scott Tarlo was my most intense editor, he could have gone further to making my work stand out, maybe to a similar level as Shelly wanted to take me. But I see no incentive for pub owners to put in the extra effort.
Meanwhile, back on Mastodon
I have put up 558 articles on my TDG blog. I use these articles to link from Mastodon posts. I make about eight Mastodon posts a day. It takes about six weeks to run through those 558 articles.
Initially, I wasn’t getting good results. But about a year ago, I started adding TDG memes to the posts. Here are four of my 30 memes:
Traffic to the TDG website is significantly better with the memes. But still no TDG workers. I believe the memes are working on my Mastodon followers to become TDG workers later. Or maybe I should say I’m hoping for this result. Regardless, it doesn’t take that much time to make those Mastodon posts. In essence, I am recycling my Medium articles for 15 minutes a day.
You might be wondering why I’m bringing Mastodon up. Well, I sometimes click a link on a Mastodon post, which takes me, usually, to a website with a paywall, subscription request, or garrish advertising. So “sometimes clicking” has turned to “seldom clicking.” I don’t have patience for this “enshittification,” which permeates throughout the internet.
Mostly Readers
Medium needs to take better advantage of its clean format. I recommend that Medium attract “mostly readers” who are looking for quality reads — and who not really interested in writing and publishing articles. Two of my lukewarm fans are mostly readers. They do not write their own articles. Maybe a lower subscription fee will find more of these readers?
Right now, most of us Medium writers are like ambitious members of a political party, trying to climb over each other to get our writing noticed. If there were more “mostly readers,” the competition would be more organic: i.e. mostly readers are reading our work, not other writers.
I envision more mostly readers coming to the clean Medium format and to the more incentivized pubs to find the education and entertainment they are looking for. I envision Medium becoming a place for citizens to get news updates. Medium pubs can specialize in this. But only if the pub owners are cut into the deal.
For example, there could be a pub called Silly Things Donald Trump Said and Did. There are many writers who would be happy to write under this pub. With the right pub owner, this pub would be popular. Heck, the pub owner might even make a reasonable return on efforts — if this pub was cut in the royalty sharing.
Other pubs could focus on Stories from Indiana or Stories from Alberta or Stories from Permaculture or Stories from UBI. Such pubs could summarize and cite credible sources for their articles — and offer some commentary. Such pubs would attract professional journalists who are looking to lure Medium readers into their parent websites. Such pubs could be places for aspiring journalists show their skills and get some exposure. They will be followed by “mostly readers.”
In summary, “The clean Medium format” → “More mostly readers” → “Pub owners getting royalties” → “Better designed pubs” → “A more organic Medium culture.”
Recent Medium Change: Presentation
A few months back, Medium put in some software that shows the number of “presentations,” which seems to be the number of times an article’s title shows up on the feeds. Most of my articles find at least 500 presentations, and a few break 2000. I consider these numbers sufficient to acknowledge that I have reached a proper-sized focus group. My ideas are being shown, but the world is not ready for them. There is some comfort to have this realization.
Let me say this in different words. With the 500+ presentations for each article, I’m pretty sure at least 50 people are seeing the “Dave Volek” article in the feed. They immediately start thinking:
There’s that crazy Dave from Canada again. He is going to tell us democracy is broken and it cannot be repaired. He wants us average people to build a new democracy.
With that thought comes the decision not to click on my article. But I have made these people feel uncomfortable because they know they are taking the easy way out by letting someone else fix democracy for them. Eventually they will see that I am right — and more effort needs to be invested to get where we need to go. That effort will not come from the political elite, regardless of how hard or how clever we try to coerce them.
Recent Medium Change: Accessible Follow List
As well, Medium added a feature to show my followed writers. I can quickly go to these writers to see what they have written recently. The advantage for me is that I can keep track of TDG prospects a lot better. These are the people I have identified as possible future supporters of my new democracy, I now follow them. I check out their fresh articles and usually give a few claps and highlights. Sometimes I give a comment.
When I see they have no interest in the TDG, I cull them a few months later. This gives me time and energy to work other new prospects. This new follow list now works better for what I am trying to do on Medium.
If you are culled, please do not take it personal. I’m trying to save the world, and the TDG needs to find TDG workers.
Conclusion
I have offered my advice to Medium more than a few times in the past seven years. In 2025, I wrote four meta-Medium articles, giving Medium a piece of my mind.
However, I do acknowledge that I do not have the full picture. There might be a good reason why the pub owners do not get 20% of the royalty.
Regardless, writing one meta-Medium article means one less article about Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG). I should put my limited time and energy on the TDG. Hopefully, this will be the last meta-Medium article from me in 2026.
But can I discipline myself?
Addendum
1. Medium did offer some of the royalities to the pub owners. When I published on a pub. I did not see a significant increase in readership. But this change would take at least a year to bear fruit.
2. John Polonis did re-activate The Political Prism.
3. I did not give Medium any more advice.
Published on Medium 2026
My Political Predictions for 2026
Executive Functions in the TDG
