The Decline of Medium.com: Leadership Failures, Tech Woes, and the Betrayal of Legitimate Writers
Welcome to the AI graveyard.
Medium.com was once the shining city on a hill for writers and readers. A place where storytelling mattered, where good ideas rose to the top, and where writers could actually earn money while sharing their voices with the world. But fast forward to today, and Medium feels more like a haunted house of broken promises.
It’s clunky, overrun with spammy junk, and riddled with AI-generated nonsense masquerading as content. The platform’s decline has been painful to watch, and at the center of it all is the elephant in the room: poor leadership under Tony Stubblebine. Combine that with relentless technical failures and what looks like a deliberate move to shut out real writers in favor of cost-cutting, and Medium is quickly becoming irrelevant.
Tony Stubblebine and the Art of Losing Trust
When Tony Stubblebine took over as CEO, many hoped he’d breathe new life into Medium. Instead, it’s been a slow-motion car crash. Leadership is about vision, right? And ideally, that vision doesn’t include alienating the very writers who make your platform worth visiting. Under Stubblebine’s watch, Medium has lurched in bizarre directions that prioritize profit margins over people.
For one, there’s been little transparency. Writers have voiced concerns about declining payouts, a broken algorithm, and increasing spam, yet leadership seems to shrug. Worse, Stubblebine’s decisions reflect a lack of connection to what made Medium special: quality content and community.
Remember when Medium was a haven for thoughtful essays and groundbreaking ideas? These days, it feels like the platform’s ethos is, “Hey, as long as someone clicks, who cares what they’re clicking on?”
The backlash isn’t just coming from random Twitter accounts, either. Writers and readers alike have called out the platform for losing its identity. Medium’s leadership seems determined to ignore them, doubling down on bad decisions while its competitors eat their lunch.
A Platform That Barely Works
If you’ve used Medium recently, you’ve probably noticed the technical issues. The site glitches, lacks any reasonable support or help protocols, and lacks meaningful updates. Writer tools are outdated, and readers often complain about clunky navigation. It’s as if Medium just gave up on being user-friendly.
One glaring issue is how poorly the platform handles its algorithm. Supposedly designed to surface quality content, it instead amplifies whatever’s easiest to churn out. AI-generated drivel? Sure! Keyword-stuffed spam? Of course! Thoughtful, well-written essays?
Good luck finding those unless you know where to look.
Meanwhile, Medium hasn’t done much to innovate. Competing platforms like Substack and even social media spaces like LinkedIn have swooped in to offer tools that writers actually want, leaving Medium in the dust. For a platform that once prided itself on being ahead of the curve, its technical stagnation is embarrassing.
Spam, AI Junk, and the Betrayal of Real Writers
Let’s talk about the elephant’s ugly cousin: the flood of spam and AI-generated content. Open Medium on any given day, and you’ll see a lot of the same garbage — clickbait articles with titles like “10 Secrets to Overnight Wealth” or AI-written nonsense about “How to Be Productive While Sleeping.” You can practically smell the ChatGPT fingerprints on these posts.
Why is this happening? Because it’s cheaper for Medium to let spam and AI junk dominate than it is to invest in real writers. Legitimate creators — the ones who used to make Medium a joy to visit — are being squeezed out. Fewer views, smaller payouts, less visibility. This isn’t an accident. Medium’s leadership knows that spam and AI don’t demand payment plans, contributor programs, or fair compensation.
The result? Legitimate writers, many of whom poured years into building their Medium presence, are abandoning ship. And honestly, who can blame them? It’s demoralizing to pour your heart into an essay only to have it buried under low-effort content that the algorithm loves because it’s cheap and plentiful.
Medium’s Deliberate Marginalization of Writers
If all of this feels intentional, it’s because it probably is. Medium’s leadership has made it clear: they don’t want to pay writers fairly. By prioritizing spam and AI, they’re not just devaluing the platform — they’re ensuring legitimate voices can’t thrive.
Take the payment structure. Medium used to reward writers for engaging, meaningful content. Now, the system feels rigged to keep payouts low. Even if your article performs well, it’s often buried in a sea of junk, cutting your earnings. Medium’s strategy seems to boil down to this: push out legitimate writers so they don’t have to spend money rewarding them.
The irony here is rich. Medium started as a platform meant to empower creators, and now it’s actively undermining them to save a buck.
The Bigger Picture
Medium’s downfall isn’t just bad news for its community — it’s a cautionary tale for the entire online publishing world. Platforms that put profits over quality content alienate their core audiences, and once that trust is gone, it’s nearly impossible to get it back.
Competitors are already stepping up. Substack, for example, offers better tools for writers and a more transparent revenue model. Even platforms like Patreon and Ko-fi are doing a better job of valuing creators.
The writing’s on the wall: if Medium doesn’t change course soon, it’ll fade into irrelevance, remembered only as a platform that once had potential but squandered it for short-term gains.
What happens next? Failure.
Medium.com had everything going for it: a strong community of writers, a reputation for quality, and a vision for democratizing content. But under Tony Stubblebine’s leadership, it has lost its way. Technical failures, a flood of spam and AI content, and a deliberate push to marginalize legitimate writers have turned Medium into a shadow of its former self.
If Medium wants to survive, it needs to prioritize the people who made it great in the first place — real writers creating real content. Until then, its decline will serve as a warning to other platforms: forget your community, and you’ll lose everything.
© E.B. Johnson 2025