Interesting piece, but not concrete in terms of getting my money. I looked over the comments, too, but still didn’t find anything like a plausible pitch. Not that I’m so rich, but I’d like to do what I could to help make the world better, if not as a writer, then as someone who supports good writing. However, in that context I’m most interested in reading (or even writing) about ideas that help solve the problems, not just longer and sadder descriptions of the problems that seem to be overwhelming us these years.
Pretty sure I investigated Medium a while back and wasn’t much impressed. I’m pretty sure I would have investigated the financial models because I think they tend to drive websites to evolve in certain directions. I’m not saying that you need to drop the existing models. However, if I did find out then I don’t remember what they were. Also, I didn’t find out much in my most recent visit (from some link?), though I eventually submitted a version of the following suggestion and received this URL as part of a response from Medium… I’m just suggesting something that I think would justify my financial participation as a reader (or possibly even as a writer).
I’d like to see fundable projects under the articles (or videos). For example, it could be an internal project to fund the author for the time spent writing the specific article. Not a get-rich-quick lottery, but just fair pay for the estimated time. If that project got funded, then it could be replaced with a different one, perhaps to fund a related article or to pay back some of the background research time. Or there might be a couple of external projects that I could pick from, where Medium would get a tithe if the project gets enough support to be funded. Again, a funded project could be replaced by another, but I think the author should help prioritize the projects based on expertise and sincerity.
The funding would come from money donated to a charity share brokerage, and then pledged to the projects as charity shares. The brokerage (which could be Medium or an independent charity organization) would earn the tithe by supporting the preparation of complete project proposals and evaluating the results to be reported back to the donors.
Lots more suggestions available upon sincere request, though I’d prefer to put my money where my mouth is (or fingers are). Not rich enough to throw a lot of money in, though I could put in more if it’s some kind of investment of seed funding.
