Dear Medium.com

“I don’t care about losing all the money. It’s losing all the stuff, “ Bernadette Peters as “Marie,” in The Jerk.

That’s how I feel about Medium. I’d be a member in no time if it meant that I could send my writing to people, and they could read it without being asked to become a subscriber.

I feel hoodwinked. Like I’m doing witless multilevel marketing for someone else’s downline. Why can’t we all share and get along? I stopped my membership, mostly and initially, because I couldn’t keep up with the suggestions for reads selected with me in mind. They ruined my browsing. I’d feel guilty when I signed on. I decided to save the $60 a month. The emails continued, but access to other people’s material shut down. So I went away altogether.

Then the slap in the face, I sent a link to a friend, to a carefully crafted and illustrated piece with him in mind. He wrote that I should just send him the piece, he’s not buying another subscription to anything, anymore. I contemplated buying a month’s subscription for him, just so he could see how nice it looked published. And that was the end.

Today, I came back, as I do, periodically — pun unintended. And whattaya know? The first thing I see, right out of the gate, as always, is the invitation to upgrade. No foreplay. Just foreshadowing. No welcome back, schmuck. No nothing.

I don’t bother looking at my stats. I don’t like the clapping thing. As a performer, I’m not getting applause; I don’t want to be reminded as a writer, that even with an audience, I am not getting liked. I have Facebook for that.

I don’t follow anyone, and if anyone follows me, I don’t know why. So, instead of publishing my piece to Medium and casting it into my FB network of 1700 strong, and my LinkedIn network of over 5,000, I’m going to post online to google docs. Or create the website for the blog for which I’ve bought several domains. But I don’t want the headache and the heartache of a time in grade effort and campaign.

As I said, I don’t care about the revenue. And clearly, vice versa. I only want it to go somewhere without having to push that boulder, all the way up the hill by myself, knowing it’s only going to fall on me, anyway. But even a rollercoaster is still one helluva ride. Medium.com express, at best, is a ticket to nowhere.

Y’all have written stuff like this. The breakup letter with Medium. Full of disappointment, and longer, better relationships than I’ve had. Some of you are publishers Medium has alienated, burning its investors along with its bridges.

And you’ve moved on to better and bigger things because I haven’t read these articles on Medium. For me, this platform was a guaranteed par return, put a little effort in, and get a little back.

And like everything else in my life, it’s not only a flash in the pan but a message in a bottle. I am so distanced, I can’t find my way home. But it isn’t to Medium.