I hid all my old YouTube videos about Medium. Here's why (and where you can still see them).
If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you’ll know I got my start on YouTube posting videos that were almost exclusively about writing on Medium.
It turned out to be a smart move.
On the strength of my rapid success on that blogging platform (more than $50,000 earned in my first 2 years) and emboldened by numbers from VidIQ showing the niche was underserved, I went all-in.
About 11 months later, I was monetized thanks in large part to Medium videos (and a handful about quitting caffeine, of all things).
In spite of all that, I’m blowing it all up.
Yesterday I unlisted all those videos and I plan to keep them secret indefinitely.
I also changed the name of my channel to reflect a major rebrand.
There are 3 main reasons for this:
I’m not interested in grinding out a meager existence on YouTube posting $10 videos.
That’s why my channel will now focus on the lucrative, underserved finance topic.
The video below is about to become my most-viewed ever, and it has done that on the strength of search.
While I did get a decent amount of search traffic with Medium stuff, the niche is so small that it amounted to a pittance in real dollars.
Much of the value in posting about Medium disappeared in September 2023
When I started out making Medium videos, the blog platform still had an exceptional referral program.
If someone subscribed to the site using your link, you got close to a 50% share of that person’s subscriber dollars as long as they remained a member of the site.
Big-time writers like Zulie Rane were pulling in $400-$500 per month before even seeing a dime from reads, and I would have been one of them had Medium not killed off the program.
It’s kind of unfortunate, actually.
I don’t think Substack would be anywhere near what it is now had Medium kept the referral program.
Now it’s eating Medium’s lunch on the paid newsletter front.
There is something majorly wrong with Medium right now.
Back when I was posting about Medium all the time, I heaped effusive praise on it … and rightly so.
In my opinion, there was no better platform for early-stage creators.
Unfortunately, Medium has been in a period of major transition over the past year and a half, and a lot of writers have been hurt in the process.
Every year, I’ve done a “Is Medium still worth it?” and every time I’ve come to the same conclusion: ABSOLUTELY.
This year, I can’t wholeheartedly say that.
I’m still doing OK since Medium bounced back from its catastrophic January earnings cut, and I discovered and described a fix in this post that worked for me.
But now there’s a distribution problem that is crushing my views (basically, anything I’ve posted since mid-January has generate crickets).
Stories that would have done 2,000 views easy in November are now struggling to reach 200 in spite of high retention and engagement rates.
Having said all that, I do have faith that Medium will in fact figure its shit out, and my Medium videos do still exist.
In fact, there’s a treasure trove of information in them for anyone just starting out on Medium or looking to get better really fast.
But you won’t be able to find them without a link.
I’ve decided to post them all below for paid members of this newsletter.
While I do intend to create a full Medium course for my members if that site manages to get it together in 2025, the videos below - posted in chronological order - serve as an excellent mini-course in the meantime.
I may return to posting about Medium on YouTube, but if I do, it will be at this new channel.
Subscribe there if you want to be the first to know when something comes out.
My goal with this Substack is always to provide undeniable value to folks who honor me with a membership.
I hope this exclusive contributes to that.