Popular digital self-publishing platform Medium will be coming up with consumer subscriptions starting this quarter. The announcement was made by CEO Ev Williams during the Upfront Summit in Los Angeles.
The company hopes that launching a consumer subscription product will help diversify its revenue stream, instead of depending solely on advertisers for income. This means that in order to continue consuming Medium content, readers will need to pay a recurring fee to access the platform's premium features.
Finding a reliable source of revenue is critical at this point since Medium is currently struggling financially. Just last month, the company parted ways with at least 50 people, which comprised a third of its staff. Medium also recently closed down its offices in New York and Washington, D.C.
Growth In Medium Readership Seen In 2016
It hasn't been all bad news for the company. At its fourth year of existence, Medium experienced tremendous growth as it changed direction and focused on established brands such as The Awl, The Ringer, and Backchannel.
Readership has improved by 300 percent, and the number of posts it publishes quadrupled last year, from 1.9 million posts in 2015 to 7.5 million in 2016. But apparently, this is not enough because even though the platform has become the go-to destination for publishers and readers alike, profitability has declined.
Lack Of Revenue, Industry-wide Problem
For Williams, Medium's lack of revenue is a sign of a systemic issue affecting the online publishing industry. He believes that digital advertising is fundamentally broken, given that big players such as Google and Facebook have a monopoly of it.
The CEO already mentioned this when he announced the layoffs last month.
"It's clear that the broken system is ad-driven media on the internet. It simply doesn't serve people," writes Williams in a blog post.
"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," adds Williams.
A subscription-based service is Medium's first step towards finding a new business model that will be profitable for the company. While many readers loathe to pay in order to view paywalled websites, they may change their mind with Medium because the platform aggregates many publishers in just one place. This means that readers can pay for just one subscription service in order to read posts from multiple content creators.
