Update on My Partner Program Status Being Revoked

Bye Medium

Ashli Dawn
3 min readJul 5, 2024
Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

I emailed Medium support about my status being revoked from the partner program, and this is the response I received:

I’m not going to waste my time refuting each of these accusations.

But I will say this:

I have done absolutely nothing to “falsely inflate” my earnings and I’m not part of any network that is interacting with itself.

I’m literally ONE PERSON, sitting behind my MacBook, writing stories that come from my heart, my soul, my brain.

I haven’t violated a single Medium policy.

In fact, since joining I’ve been a vocal advocate of Medium, even writing articles about how we can all work together to make the platform thrive.

Those articles (ALL of my articles) are being deleted.

Medium is not going to have access to my stories if they’re not going to pay me for them.

And even if Medium were to realize the error of their ways and reinstate my account, I’m done.

I loved reading stories from the many amazing writers on here.

I loved interacting with people.

I loved having a place where I could share my thoughts, fears, dreams, hopes, life experiences.

So when I say that Medium is a toxic place, I’m not talking about the incredible people who make up this platform.

I’m talking about the Medium Corporation.

The corporation that has been around for 12 years, has raised nine figures of capital, and is still not profitable.

The corporation that claims to be a “home for human stories and ideas” but without warning, revokes the status of the very people who are writing these human stories.

The corporation who says they are “a space for thoughtful conversation” but has no qualms in revoking the partner status of their writers without a second thought.

The corporation who states what “what matters is genuine member engagement” but then accuses it’s genuine members (who have even written prior stories of how to engage authentically on Medium) of engaging in “inauthentic engagement.”

I hate that I was sucked into this platform.

I hate that I was naive enough to think that Medium was “different.”

I hate that I poured out my heart and soul on here.

I hate that I fell for Medium’s carefully constructed platitudes, failing to see them for the cringeworthy corporate buzzwords that they actually are.

I hate that I was a cheerleader for this platform.

But most of all, I hate that I gave a toxic corporation any of my mental space, and allowed it to negatively affect me in the way that it has.

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