I’m releasing all my stories from behind the paywall
It’s time to set them free
I’ve been publishing on Medium since 2020. I’m not a particularly prolific writer, usually cranking out something new every couple of weeks or so. So to date, I’ve posted 67 stories. From the start, I posted behind the paywall because, what the heck, free money. And I’ve enjoyed the modest dribble of dollars flowing from my more popular pieces, but it’s hardly the main reason I publish here.
Recently, I’ve noticed an odd dropoff in my readership. I’ve managed over the last five years to build up an audience of around 1,600 followers. Up until a couple of months ago, it seemed like a decent chunk of those folks would take a peek at my stuff, usually with a few thoughtful comments and a few hundred claps and a few days of active reading and viewing. But recently, my pieces seem to get very little response at all. Like … zero reads for 2–3 days after publishing. Maybe I’ve just gotten boring, I realize that’s a perfectly valid alternative explanation. I contacted Medium support about this, and they assured me (in a nicely-written but obviously canned response) that nothing has changed in how my stories are distributed or made available on the site. OK, then.
I’ve decided to conduct a little experiment. As of today I have switched all my stories over to free public access. No more paywall for any of them. I want to see whether this will perhaps boost readership, or not. I can live without my monthly Medium coffee money, but I really don’t want to miss out on the conversations I’ve enjoyed with so many readers on this platform.
To engage in one last effort at blatant self-promotion, here are links to a few of my recent and more popular posts, now in their new and improved free-for-all form.
Just today, I released a series of posts on the trials and tribulation of the Democratic Party in the age of Trump 2.0:
Much of my focus since January has been on the damage being inflicted by the Trump 2.0 regime. I’m equally interested in how that damage is going to intersect with and accelerate other major trends of the polycrisis facing global civilization in the 21st Century. Some examples:
I’ve also devoted quite a few stories to problems and challenges around the closely related topics of degrowth (voluntary and involuntary) and the threat of civilization collapse. Here are some of the more popular:
Finally, for all you fans of my marketing stuff (Hi mom!), here are some of my early posts on marketing, advertising, and brain science. Whether you’re trying to sell toothpaste or a Presidential candidate, it all comes down to persuasion, or does it?
That’s all I’ll mention for now. If you find any of these stories useful, I hope you will share them with others who might like to read them. I’m going to see how my new “free-for-all” strategy works. If I’ve still got an audience here, I’ll probably have more to say. If not, well, I’ll probably have more to say anyway.
