I guess what is confounding is that there are three relationships here. There is one between the publication and the reader, another between Medium and the reader, and yet another between the publication and Medium.
The publication/reader relationship is pretty straightforward. If you don’t disclose how you are making money on the content you publish then you are being duplicitous. Bloggers that take money, gifts, or swag from people or companies and then write about those things without disclosing the payments are scumbags. Non-disclosure is why online reviews are a nightmare rather than a joy. Either you make it clear who is PAYING you or you don’t deserve to be read.
This used to not be a problem because, in old media, there was a very serious “wall between church and state”. It wasn’t a joke, we all know that. It got blown up somehow and we’re all still sifting through the debris. Gawker is a good example of the mud we find ourselves in. Right now, I have no idea what to trust on their web site, same for HuffPo, Buzzfeed, etc.
Something like this:
No problem.
As for my relationship with Medium, I think it is very unclear. Is Backchannel paying Medium, or is Medium paying Backchannel? I’d like to know, but that’s not your problem, that’s Medium’s problem.
Does Medium let you pay to get to the top of the feed? Does Medium promise promotion to established titles that move to Medium? Does Medium pay any individual authors? Those are all reasonable questions, I think.
The gamers on YouTube have figured out part of the new landscape. The good ones make it very clear how YouTube works and what they get or take from game makers. That’s why the pre-release contract controversy blew up as soon as it happened.
