Making the Medium bucks

Medium is finally profitable

Author

Backlog
August 22, 2024

Medium / medium.com

Medium, on the other hand, have chosen to avoid generative AI (so far); and it seems to finally be paying off.

Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine made the exciting announcement:

August is our first profitable month in the history of the company. We got here because more members are supporting us than ever before.

Tony Stubblebine

Founded in 2012, getting to profitability has therefore taken a cool 12 years. One helluva journey.

What did it? Generating revenue became a point of focus in Medium’s product strategy back in 2017. That year, they launched two initiatives:

  1. Memberships (March 2017). Medium launched a $5/mo membership plan which would give subscribers access to exclusive content and an ad-free reading experience.

  2. Partner program (August 2017). Medium allowed writers to earn money based on engagement to their stories.

Medium also massively cut costs, according to Tony, managing to half their AWS bill.

Medium cut AWS costs in half / medium.com

Yep, that’ll help.