I’m Tired of Feeding Platforms

The hamster wheel is compelling, but I need to slow down

Photo by Author

Lately I’ve been wondering what artists, writers, and other creators can realistically expect from the platforms where we post our work. The content we create in exchange for views or reads or (if we’re lucky) some sort of revenue share turns some of us into millionaires.

But for most of us, it can be a slippery slope of constant content creation driven not by our own creativity, but by trying to win a guessing game of algorithmic bingo. Writing is a particularly difficult type of art to share online because it’s not visual. It takes a long time to create. And robots are now pumping it out much faster than humans.

Writing something that a platform elevates, an audience loves, and earns real money can turn writers into desperate content-generating machines. It’s exhausting.

I wasn’t thinking about any of this when I posted my first story on Medium, a republished essay I’d written for The Washington Post. At the time, I just wanted somewhere to republish my work. I wanted my essays to reach a wider audience.

I wanted them to have more longevity. That essay remains my most widely read piece on the platform, with over seventeen thousand reads. It’s earned more than $2000 so it also wins as the single…