Medium, a blogging platform that transformed into a platisher (platform + publisher), has announced that it will be closing the portion of its operations that focuses on native ad sales. This means that one third of its existing staff will be let go so the company can refocus on getting payments from its readers by providing quality articles that require a subscription.
Medium is a company that started out in 2012 as a blogging platform, found that it’s idea to operate as a company that makes money from membership fees, is not as easy as it seems. Its goal was to produce high quality articles which would generate traffic and increase membership rates, thereby providing funds to pay the high quality writers so they could continue providing content.
George Quraishi moved his site Howler, which focuses on the sport of soccer, to the Medium platform last year. He states, “I can say for certain that we have really enjoyed using Medium as a publishing platform for the last few months, and I share Medium’s desire to figure out how to reward (and be rewarded for) publishing quality writing.”
Ev William, founder of Medium, made comments about issues with the web in general when it comes to ad-driven media. He states, “it’s clear that the broken system is ad-driven media on the internet.” He also stated that Medium just wasn’t as transformative as they needed to be in order to succeed in its native ad venture.
