Why Do I Write About Data Science On Medium, For FREE?
Because of this one simple reason…
Two months ago, I made a goal to myself that I’d write an article on data science on Medium every week, for as long as I could by contributing to Towards Data Science.
And I can tell you right now that this is one of the most fruitful and rewarding commitments that I’ve ever made and acted on it.
I learned so much more than I could ask for throughout my writing journey despite the difficulties.
So you may ask me, “ Do you earn money from your articles?”. Not surprisingly, I also faced this similar question asked by some of my friends…
For the rest of this article, I’ll share with you the single reason of writing my articles on Medium all for free. In other words, you don’t pay me anything by reading my articles and I have no monetary gains from you whatsoever.
At the end of the article, I hope to encourage you to join me the mission of writing and sharing your experience and ideas (whatever they are). 😃
Medium Partner Program
But before that, let’s talk about how writers can earn money from readers — through Medium Partner Program.
For your information, Partner Program writers are paid every month based on how members engage with stories.
“Members” in this case refer to readers who pay $5/month subscription fees to access stories that are published through Medium Partner Program.
The amount of money earned by each writer depends on the engagement of members with the stories published. Some factors include reading time (how long members spend reading a story) and applause (how much members clap).
And where does the money come from?
YES, you’re right. The money comes from each member’s $5/month subscription and is distributed proportionally to the stories that the individual member engaged with that month.
Now that we’ve understood how writers can make money through Medium articles, let’s talk about why I chose not to be one of these writers, particularly in data science.
One reason why I write about data science on Medium, for FREE?
Given this business model discussed earlier, why would I not choose this avenue to monetize my writing and earn some $$ ?
Simple.
I believe that ideas sharing should be accessible to everyone. And when we share, we learn at the same time. Simple as that.
Since I am an advocate of sharing-learning environment for education. You can also call it “Education should be accessible to everyone”. Period.
I’m not referring to formal education, but rather lifelong education, which encompasses all types of education in the context of the sharing-learning environment.
In my previous article — Why Do I Write About Data Science?, I stated two goals in mind:
Help and guide aspiring data scientists and enthusiasts
Improve my communication skills
If you’ve been following me on Medium, my articles mostly revolve around sharing my experience (technical and non-technical) in data science field and debunking some the common myths faced by so many aspiring data scientists (Why Did I Reject a Data Scientist Job? for example).
And I’m a strong believer that this sharing should be (and will always be) accessible to everyone to read, digest, learn and ultimately benefit the reader in one way or another.
We, as a writer, learn by reflecting on our journey and thinking and further deconstructing these thoughts into words.
If I were to publish my articles through Medium Partner Program, some aspiring data scientists or any other readers might not be able to access them (once they have read 3 articles in a month that are published through Medium Partner Program) as they didn’t subscribe to Medium Partner Program. And my audience will be restricted to members, which is not something that I want.
In simple terms, I want to democratize the sharing-learning environment on Medium to hopefully reach and help more people that they may not have access to otherwise.
Final Thoughts
There you have it.
Thank you for reading. I hope that this article helped you understand my main motivation for writing about data science on Medium.
Ideas sharing should be accessible to everyone. I want to democratize the sharing-learning environment on Medium through my writing.
It is that simple. And I’ll stay true to this course for every single piece of my writing.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to leave your comments below. Till then, see you in the next post!