My first 23 articles on Medium were read on average 5k times each. The 24th one, How to Become the Best in the World at Something, got nearly 300k views. It earned me less than $5k. That’s a dollar for every 60 readers.

I like to say that I write about media generally and journalism specifically because the industry is a canary in the coal mine when it comes to the impact of the Internet: text shifted from newsprint to the web seamlessly, completely upending the industry’s business model along the way.Of course I have a vested interest in this shift: for better or... See more