Why Commenting without Reading is a Silly Idea
The downfalls of commenting on Medium without reading
One tactic that I notice is widely used by Medium writers to engage within the community is to comment on or, like as many articles as possible. The theory is that more people are then more likely to return the favour because you’ve interacted with more people. There are many downfalls to that tatic.
Medium users only get paid per read
The most obvious downfall is that writers only get paid per read. So, someone has to read for at least 30 seconds in order for a writer to be paid. It makes no sense for people to engage back with someone after they don’t read their work, just because they viewed it.
Overall, you may attract more people, but you lower your read ratio by attracting more people who don’t properly engage back to your work. That is if you encourage this kind of behaviour by rewarding it with your attention.
It’s a really easy tatic to spot
When you have a small account, you can more clearly guess which users are actually engaging with your work. Some articles may have many claps or comments and few or no reads. Therfore it’s easy to see which articles actually earn.
