Why I write on medium
I enjoy writing a lot, but there is more to it.
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While on the flight to New York for a model United Nations conference, one of my friends and I got talking, and somehow, our conversation took a turn towards medium. After a quick explanation of the platform and what kind of texts I usually write, he asked me a stinging question:
“Why do you write there?”
I paused for a minute because I couldn’t find a straightforward answer. To be completely honest, I was a bit taken aback by the question because I hadn’t asked myself that same question for quite some time. In order to answer it, I need to take a quick trip back to the past.
When I first heard about medium.com, it was the middle of May in 2020. I had just finished my boot camp in the Swiss army and had to fill my summer with something to do. While investigating options for creating money online, I stumbled upon a YouTube video explaining medium.com. The prospect of writing about stuff topics that interest you and earning some money while doing it was right up my alley. Just before I had to do my military service, I completed a six-month internship at a local newspaper. Furthermore, I had taken a few half-hearted shots at creating a YouTube channel, and writing requires significantly less time than shooting and editing videos. I decided to try it and started writing daily for the next 30 days.
So, starting out, I was mostly writing on medium to earn something on the side.
However, soon after starting to write on the platform, two crucial things occurred to me. Foremost, writing about subjects you care about is a ton of fun, and second, making money on a medium isn’t as easy as the YouTube video I saw made it seem.
During my time as an intern at our local newspaper, I wrote for paying customers that wanted to advertise their business in the newspaper. Even though I got the chance to write a lot and take on quite some responsibility, by the end of the internship, my love for writing had diminished. I wasn’t too sad to continue with another chapter in my life. However, writing on medium made me realize that writing is something I still enjoy and provides a lot of satisfaction. Writing about stuff I care about was not only refreshing, but it made me passionate…