Last week I did a small group session on personal brand building. It was the first time I had ever spoken about that topic and I was surprised by how many people wanted to talk about it. If this is something you are interested in, let me know and I'll write more about it.
But one of the quick side comments I made was publishing on Medium is a terrible idea. That comment seemed to catch a lot of people by surprise and some followed up to ask why.
Three Reasons Why Publishing On Medium Is A Bad Idea
You Are Building Medium's Brand, Not Your Own
Think about it. When someone tells another person about an article they read on Medium, they almost never say "Did you see this awesome article by [author]." They almost always say "Did you see this awesome article on Medium."
Why? Every site has a hierarchy of presence. For Medium, the top of the hierarchy is clearly Medium. There is little presence of the author. It's even worse for Medium publications where the hierarchy is Medium → Name of Publication → Author. Most readers never see past the top of the hierarchy and as a result, people aren't associating your hard work with you, they are associating it with Medium.
You Have Little Ownership Over the Audience
You have little to no ownership over your own audience. You can't take your audience elsewhere, you have no other way to communicate with them besides publishing again, and the controls to collect emails within a Medium post is severely limited.
Monetization Is Garbage
If you want to monetize your audience, Medium is terrible. I still haven't seen repeated evidence of writers making meaningful amount of money. Plus, adjacent opportunities like workshops, courses, etc aren't possible because of #1 and #2.
People commonly push back on a couple things.
There Is Built In Distribution - What is the point of having distribution, if it is resulting in not building your brand, building your audience, or monetization?
It's So Easy To Write There - Yes, it might be low friction. But with tools like Squarespace, Webflow, Substack, and so many others you can stand up your own website on your own domain in 30 minutes or less.
Why Substack Will Take Over Medium
I have a hypothesis that Substack is going take over Medium. Substack is draining the brain of Medium. They are clearly attracting the smartest and best writers. Why? Look no further to the reasons above.
You own your audience on Substack.
The author/publication name is at the top of the hierarchy of presence, not Substack, and as a result you are building your own brand, not someone else's.
The monetization opportunity is far better. I don't know the exact numbers, but my best guess is there are way more writers already making 5 and 6 figures on Substack vs Medium. Plus, since you own the contact info of your audience you may be able to monetize them in other ways.
They do all of the above, while also removing tons of friction to the creation.
Medium has a large head start on their content growth loops. But those content loops are driven by quality content. If the brain drain continues, those content loops will break.
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