Fox Kerry,
Thanks for the nice comment and no worries, I'll be around reading for a while, and have now had this handy list of most of my favorite writers made for me (in the form of these comments), so I can easily still come and find your stuff to continue the conversation. I never know what Medium is feeding me or why, but now I can just come here and click on my faves.
I am glad you asked your question. I'm very scattered (probably ADHD if we're honest about it) so when people ask things it forces me to slow down, pay attention, articulate reasons.
In comments with others here I have offered other explanations. But I'll explore a bit more here. First, please note that quitting Medium is just one of the changes coming up in my life. I just told someone else, I think this heralds an overall shift for me. I already dislike and barely use my cell phone, but I'm going to step away from the computer and social media even more. Don't know what all lies in store but the less time I spend trying to fruitlessly figure out Medium, the more time I will have for other things I want to do in life, including reading more books.
I thought, yeah, why do I hate this Tech Bro space so much? So I just went and looked up the Medium wikipedia page (stupid source, I know, but I was doing a quick and lazy search) and even just reading that makes me feel, yeah, I just don't want to work here anymore. It was founded by a Tech Bro. It's run by Tech Bros. Check out their board. Classic. All tech bros, with the exception of Colin Kaepernick. And that's fine. It's just that the more I read and learn anywhere the more I start to feel that libertarian tech bros are really screwing up the world (I'm reading "Fulfillment" right now, about Amazon, WOW, go read that for big picture about how destructive these leaders and companies are). And really, I guess, they can do that. But I don't want to dump ever more content into their mill. It makes me nervous and more importantly, it just doesn't make me feel good about using--writing on OR reading--their product. Go read the Wikipedia page. It's interesting.
Then there's also the union-busting anti-journalism thing Medium just went through, also: yucky.
I hope that helps connect some dots. The men writing under their own names/women not thing just seemed to me indicative of how this space isn't really meant to build anything outside of Medium. And, although it's been a fun time and there's a ton of nice people here, I want to go live in the world. I don't want to live in Medium anymore.
More than you needed to know. Never ask a scattered person to explain their motives. My spouse could tell you I also TOTALLY enjoy burning bridges. Maybe it was just that simple.
