I’m Over Medium’s Algorithm
I want to wrestle back control of my own thoughts!
Yes, I occasionally write on Medium, and I love the creative outlet. However, like many members here, I visit the site primarily to read. I loved the platform when I joined a lifetime ago, in 2019. It was a fantastic way to learn about people who walked a very different path than mine.
It is a monetized platform, and as such, it is constantly changing. Since I never had any real goal of making significant money on the platform — I didn’t feel deeply invested in the changes until they started interfering with what I could find to read on the site. I thought it was intuitive. When I came across a writer that I found interesting, I would follow them, thinking that would make me more likely to see their work.
When I first noticed that most of my feed was filled with the same 3 or 4 writers, and I was becoming burned out on their content, I unfollowed them. That had zero effect on what was appearing on my feed. So, I set out to unfollow hundreds of writers. If anything, my feed seemed to grow even more restrictive.
Predominantly, my Medium feed is filled with race issues and various forms of “the sky is falling.” To be transparent, I honestly believe the sky might be falling. However, just because I read an article about the subject doesn’t…
