Medium, Battling Clickbait & a Return to Long Form Blogging
Ev Williams, the CEO of Medium, recently announced that the popular blogging platform is going to lay off about 1/3 of it's employees in an attempt to shift away from a business model revolving around ad-driven media and clickbait.
In a recent blog post, he wrote:
““The current system causes increasing amounts of misinformation…and pressure to put out more content more cheaply — depth, originality, or quality be damned. It’s unsustainable and unsatisfying for producers and consumers alike….We need a new model.””
He goes on to write, "Upon further reflection, it’s clear that the broken system is ad-driven media on the internet. It simply doesn’t serve people. In fact, it’s not designed to. The vast majority of articles, videos, and other “content” we all consume on a daily basis is paid for — directly or indirectly — by corporations who are funding it in order to advance their goals. And it is measured, amplified, and rewarded based on its ability to do that. Period. As a result, we get…well, what we get. And it’s getting worse."
It'll be interesting and I hope, refreshing to see a big online publishing platform break away from a model which appears to encourage click-bait articles and shallow content for the sake of page views to generate ad revenue. Williams states that Medium will refocus in a new direction and adopt a new model in which writers are incentivized and rewarded for the quality and value of their content which is aligned with their mission: To actually help people.
I've decided to follow suit in my small way by resolving to stop complaining about poor wellness-related content I read in the news and instead to contribute more original, long-form blog posts to inform readers of what I believe are relevant topics in rehab and wellness. My motives obviously have less to do with ad-revenue and more to do with just creating helpful, informative evidence-based content as an alternative to the increasing amount of clickbaity, list-format online content that has gotten so popular. I'd like to start appraising relevant physical therapy and wellness-related research, both new and old, and to report on how their findings can help (or won't help, in some cases) us in our day-to-day lives.
The first of such posts will come later in the week and will be related to the topic of dragon boat training and performance.