On a more serious note, there are a lot of high earners whose writing I find boring and derivative, or flat out counter-factual. But their success is due to their genius as social media marketers.
Last year I found an article by a data expert who collected and analyzed almost one million Medium stories between Aug 2017 and Aug 2018. It led me to write this last August:
The biggest insights from his article are the following:
1. 2,000 claps is the gold standard for writing success at Medium. That represents the top 1%.
2. Only 1.2% of the 230,000 authors on Medium had written an article with more than two thousand claps.
3. Only 0.157% of those 230,000 authors posted two articles that received more than 2,000 claps.
4. Only .093% (less than 1/10 of one percent) posted more than four articles that received more than 2,000 claps.
Not only do your tireless literary labors have zero monetary value, but the same regurgitated self help pablum, tech bro preening, and life hacks everyone hates are being compensated directly by Medium!
To paraphrase the great George Carlin, have you noticed that their shit turns to gold, and our gold turns to shit?
