Reply to Jim on medium

I appreciate what you have written here. There is a lot of truth. But, if I’m being honest, it feels more like a rant than a true attempt to offer a solution. Here’s why I say that. It is not meant to be an attack.

First, you don’t address the issue of the algorithm. What you see on your homepage is different than what I see on mine. The fact that you are seeing more less quality articles doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a growing problem in medium. I think you’re probably right, I just don’t necessarily believe the way to prove that is by personal anecdote only.

Second, what you call cannibalism is somewhat important. Due to the sheer number of writers, in order for a particular point about any topic to get around, many people need to write about that same point. If only one or two people ever wrote about the overuse of adverbs, I would probably never have come across an article that taught me that over-using them is really, really, really… really bad. 😉

Third, and most important, is that I think a better solution would be how to find and curate the quality articles. There will always be bad writing on the Internet. There is no solution for that. Perhaps recommend some publications that you feel, for the most part, offer quality writing. Recommend some authors you believe are good writers on medium. I think the best solution to this issue is learning how to find the signal in all the noise. I think I would have liked to have read that.