Medium just screwed me

They disabled the ability to post articles from your phone forcing me to post when I have my laptop. Or wait till I get in front of a desktop. Which I can’t (and won’t) do. At home, I’m too used to my phone. Given social media and YouTube, checking emails, or even watching webinars I can do that on my phone as opposed to a laptop.

As an Apple user, I tend to use Safari. Incompatible with Mediums blog-or at least the About You section. Ironically I just read an article on Medium no less that stated the app is a horrible place for writers.

Substack is now the place to be. So I started a Substack account. Who knows how that will go but the timing is not lost on me one bit.

Why make the app function like we are back in 1999? Back then with no cell phone ability to do anything beyond text, you had to wait to you got home to post anything. And if you somehow could afford a laptop-connecting it to the web in the street was a monumental task. I’d email things from school and then finish them at home. Then upload it once I fixed the mistakes.

We have long passed such arduous workarounds. But for some reason (IPO…? Or at least ‘Money’-which is a part of this -it always is) Medium decided to go back to the late ’90s.

I don’t work an “office job”. I didn’t get this laptop to post 5-minute articles. I got it for writing 60-page pilots and 90+ page screenplays. What this means is now I have to post Medium articles when I get off work. Like many of us I compose drafts in the phone. Then copy and paste it to the blog site. It’s easy to do but to think that now I have no other way to post to a blog in 2022 but to wait till I’m home or if I do have my laptop, when I get off work.

This means I’ll probably be “bulk” posting. I’ll just do a Netflix and drop multiple articles all at once.

I reached out to customer service and like all customer service, they assumed I was the problem. In the first email I wrote I stated that I’m trying to post from two different BROWSERS, the response I got back was you can’t post in the app, talk about asleep at the switch. I’ve long held a big disdain for ‘customer service’ mainly due to is a ploy most firms throw at their employees in some lame attempt to do more with less.

No matter how short-staffed and undersupplied you are -you are to handle these permanent minuses with “professional” customer service. (Which if shown any it is cookie-cutter smile at everything and lie and/or kiss the customer’s ass and be gleefully vague).

This is how you get lousy customer service, the kind that blew off my email and assumed I was the problem. I was well aware of the inability to use the app to draft and post articles. I didn’t expect in 2022 the ability to post from your smart phones would be nixed.

No Medium this aint Apple killing, Flash, headphone ports, DVD drives-which theres is a lot crying early on-and oh wow didn’t Samsung kill of their headphone jack? Makes sense we have Bluetooth. When Apple killed Flash they saw personal content creating on the horizon. Youtube debuts and poof Flash is a relic of a bygone tech era. What is the alternative I’m suppose to use if I can’t post from my smartphone? And I don’t always have my laptop with me and eve if so I don’t always have the ability to get a wifi signal-just to post one five minute article. Whats the workaround?

At first, I was like “wait, does Medium assume I can post at work, or do I have a laptop with WiFi at the ready whenever I’m not home? I’m damn sure know they don’t expect me to wait 10 hours till I get home to post? 8 hours at the job with a 1-hour commute both ways. Here’s their response:

Hi,

Thanks for writing in and for your feedback. For additional context, through research, we found that a large majority of writers use the desktop website to write, edit and publish stories. With this and the need to create a stronger reading experience in mind, we removed the editor so we could make it easier for readers to discover and engage with the content writers create. I understand that removing this feature is disappointing and I’ll share it with our product team as they continue to refine the mobile app.

While the current changes are focused on simplifying the app to provide a stronger reading experience, we are thinking through ways we can evolve the creation and editing experience for writers.

We’ll continue to share any updates as new tools and features are released. Thanks for reading and writing on Medium.

Thanks,
Elle
Writer Support

Ok so I did a basic google search on cell phone usage and found this from reviews.org:

Yeah well, I never remember Medium asking me the frequency in which I use my smartphone or laptop, and if I was I would’ve said my phone. I am a blue collar writer.

I don’t work in an office with access or the ability to use a desktop. Our smartphones can do a lot, it makes the role of a tablet or laptop different. Just five years ago I would’ve not thought twice about composing a blog on my phone but I would’ve waited till I either was home or out in the public with my laptop to post. But at around 2016 that all started to change. Now I only take the laptop out to write screenplays. Other than that I don’t use it much.

That’s how fast the tables have turned. I can even edit videos with a professional video app. Adobe added Rush to its Premiere lineup. Though it has its issues it’s good for what I use it for, social media videos. But the geniuses at Medium see it way differently.

I work security in a midtown Manhattan building, where you stand for forty hours a week. You do not use the computers for non-job-related reasons.

So working on the company’s desktop for non-company needs, and also using the job’s internet to post blog articles will get you fired.

Just using our phones is already controversial and the building I’m in now doesn’t mind. But the bozos at Medium weren’t thinking about blue-collar writers such as myself. I brought my laptop to work once. During the holidays no less and someone from upper management saw it and lost their shit. Nope. Not going to be able to do it.

Shows you what they - Medium think of us. Or maybe I’m not a part of their “us”?