Follower count is always interesting as a metric - and you have shot past my follower count although only here half the time and good for you. I don't mind, for two reasons - It doesn't always equate with read time and it doesn't equate with earnings on the platform either. I have seen articles by writers who have amassed 12K followers but still struggle to break $20 a month. I have spoken to Ben Sledge (40K followers) when we set up the Panopticon and we earn broadly the same amount from writing on the platform - and both of us are happy with our token side hustle. After 5 years here I can conclusively say followers aren't a good indicator of much. It is better to have 2K engaged followers than 20K fair-weather followers.
I suspect follower count is more related to output and how prolific an author is or how on brand with the zeitgeist their writing is. Medium readers love an echo chamber, they love a productivity hack, they love feeling like what they already think is exactly right - and are more likely to click and follow something when they strongly agree with the sentiment. I have certainly benefited from follower windfalls when my writing is WITH the direction of social travel. Your stuff is generally to the political left and often identity based - and there's a lot of mopping up new followers after people like Marley K wandered away once race-baiting ceased to be a profitable niche.
And the answer is yes, you have found an audience - your pieces (whilst I often disagree with them) are well written, you stand your ground and you have intelligent things to say and don't shy away from saying them. Denning i don't read, Jgln blocked me because she didn't like being challenged on doing Femagoguery with additional pretty-privilege. Medium is good. It has changed for the better and although there's still work to be done - I'm confident it's getting done :o)
What Tony has done is ensured the Medium money has flowed downwards and is more evenly distributed across the writers. There's still the echo chambers, there's still promotion of sub-par writing because it's zeitgeist-y - but there's less of that now and there's a lot less Meta-Medium. If those people come from Brazil, India and Nigeria and they commit to writing here (as you did) then they will become good bloggers as opposed to talented writers - the system is now set up to reward consistent good writing, That's the key and it's why followers don't matter. That's what you've done. You had to push through that year with 200 followers and $0.20 a story (as I did) and you had to stay the course and keep writing, to build followers but more importantly to learn how to format, how to engage an audience, how to find your voice and how to move from raw talent to blogging talent - and you did. I look back at 2018 Penguin with a mixture of alarm and embarrassment and I suspect I'll do the same thing in five years time with today's articles - but I'm still here and you still are too. Kudos for that - you're turning into a Medium Old Man. ;o)
