What’s it Like on the Other Side of the Paywall?

I wonder what I’m losing.

Using Medium as my primary writing platform often feels like something of a gamble.

Yes, it’s free for me to use, but the only way I can make any money from it is by affirmatively placing my work behind Medium’s paywall. For folks who don’t subscribe to Medium, should they stumble across something I wrote after they’ve already clicked on five other Medium articles, they don’t get to read it. In that scenario I not only lose a potential reader (though not any income because they weren’t subscribing to begin with), but any potential new readers I might have gained from the that person sharing my work. It just stops at the paywall.

If I publish outside the paywall, of course, anyone can read it and share it, and that’s great, except the part where I don’t get paid.

Then the question is just how much I stand to lose by not posting behind the paywall. And the answer is: Usually nothing. Prepare yourself to be shocked, but, alas, I do not command a huge readership. So the vast majority of my articles wind up generating me something between about 20 cents and a buck and a half every month.

That makes it sound like an easy trade-off. Do without the pocket change and potentially get your material in front of far, far more…