Medium finally announces new premium perk
Medium has launched its Mastodon server and is now open to the member community. However, you must pay a $5 fee to use the server as it requires a premium membership.
In January, Medium announced its Mastodon server, teasing its plans around the Fediverse. Now, the feature is ready for the members' use. Tech Crunch reported that 5,000 people joined the waitlist, and the company aims to build a community with a six-figure user size. Apart from sharing their stories, users can share their thoughts with a local feed featuring posts from fellow writers and readers, just like on Twitter. It will also offer hand-picked recommendations for interesting people to follow.
We're really excited to be fully rolling this out: As of today, our Mastodon instance https://t.co/IP5DmahzTu is fully open to all Medium members!
If you're a Medium member, read on to learn how to quickly and easily get your new account up and running: https://t.co/pvevp3capF
— Medium (@Medium) March 6, 2023
"A few weeks ago, we announced that Medium is embracing short-form writing by launching our very own Mastodon server at me.dm. Starting today, we’re opening up me.dm access for our member community. If you’re a Medium member, you can create an account on me.dm, said Alex Benzer, product director at Medium.
Mastodon is a decentralized social media platform, and any one entity does not own it. It has been around for a couple of years but got more popular after Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter. Musk's actions made users flee the platform and join a competitor. It is not a mystery that users are questioning Twitter's future under Musk's leadership, leading to major user loss for the company. Mastodon is one of the best choices on the market for those who are looking for a new Twitter-like platform that is decentralized. Medium's new move will also bring many people into the platform.
The company offers the Mastodon server as one of its premium subscription perks. Unlike other applications or websites, the price is quite affordable for what it offers.
How to create me.dm account?
As mentioned earlier, you must have a premium subscription package to join Medium's Mastodon server. It will cost you only $5 per month in the monthly plan or $50 per year if you opt for the annual subscription. Of course, you need to create your own account with Medium first. Go to Medium's home page and click "Get started" at the top right of your screen. Follow the instructions and create your account.
Next, buy the premium subscription here. You have two options, monthly or annual plans. The premium subscription offers no ads, support quality writing, access on any device, read offline with the Medium app, and a Mastodon account. After buying a premium subscription, it is now time to hover over to Medium's Mastodon server and create your account right away. Medium has also reserved the existing usernames on me.dm, so you will have an opportunity to register it before anyone else. "For example, if your Medium name is “yourname”, your me.dm username will be @yourname@me.dm," says the official announcement.
What is interesting about this collab is that the founder of Medium, Evan Williams, is one of the co-founders of Twitter. Recently, another co-founder, Jack Dorsey's app that will compete with Titter, Bluesky, was launched for a few people on the App Store. Both former Twitter founders/employees are leaning toward the decentralized environment.
hahaha yea they’ll sell something everyone else gives away free. *Pass*
They dont have enough people to have a vibrant community and they don’t have unique enough content to spare that people need to buy into some kind of exclusivity.