I Want to Create a New Home for Spiritual Wisdom
Why I Closed My Medium Publication, ‘The Taoist Online,” and Moved It to Substack
How It Started
A new social network named Mastodon appeared, and I wanted to give it a chance since my Twitter days had long passed. So, I opened my own website and began to write, sharing the posts through the new social network. I created the moniker The Taoist Online since Taoism (Daoism) is the lens I choose to see the world through.
Instead of everyone ignoring me, visitors to the site grew quickly and caught the attention of Debra G. Harman. She was extremely friendly and supportive and was well-connected to many other excellent writers on a platform called Medium. Surprisingly, I joined Medium in 2013, just a year after it launched. I wrote an article about esports and moved on.
Eventually, I decided to give Medium another try, opened a new account, and looked around for fellow thinkers who wrote about Taoism, philosophy, or just general spirituality. However, finding publications and users was difficult, and to some degree, still is. I didn’t see much of an audience, so I did what everyone does — Googled it.
“How to grow your audience on Medium.” A Google search that changed my life.
One of the results suggested creating a publication, as the algorithm preferred accepted articles. I searched Medium for a publication about Taoism and didn’t find one. Next, I searched for philosophy and spiritualism but didn’t find anything that fit my work. With only one option left, I created a publication and selfishly took the name from my old Wix website—The Taoist Online.
Through various Discord channels and chat rooms, I discovered a few other writers looking for a home. There was a teenager from England who loved stoicism, a kindred spirit from the U.S. who loved Taoism, and a woman in Brazil who wrote about veganism. Soon, I had dozens of writers who wanted to help and share their journeys with the world. I accepted all of them.
In only our third month, The Taoist Online (TTO) reached 140,000 monthly viewers!
My editing queue exploded, and I brought on several editors, whom I tipped each month with my Medium payments.
By the end of our first year, we reached 190,000 monthly viewers and accepted hundreds of writers who published hundreds of articles each month.
Everyone was happy and healthy and loved the hard work. Tens of thousands of strangers came together each month to read, share, and connect regardless of religion, faith, nationality, race, or gender. My publication, stupidly named after myself, became a massive force for change and wisdom online.
Until it wasn’t.
Darkness Always Follows Light
Medium provides four tools for running a publication.
The ability to create publications with a home page.
The ability for writers to submit articles to a publication.
The ability for publishers to accept or deny articles.
Private notes from editors to the writer and vice versa.
That’s it.
As a publication owner, did you receive 50+ article submissions today, and do you need to filter or sort them? Sorry, that feature isn’t on the list. You should make a spreadsheet. Then make sure you all share and maintain it together, forever.
Do you need a method to communicate with your editors that isn’t public comments on articles? Sorry, that isn’t on the list either. Every private comment you leave for the writer, every editor will also be able to see. You should make a Discord or Slack workspace, or email each other all the time.
Want to communicate with everyone who is a writer? Sorry, that’s not on the list. You’ll need to find them one at a time and ask them your question, or create an announcement page on your publication homepage and hope everyone reads it. I hope you have an email address for them, or else you’ll go to private notes, where the notification can get buried under all of the other Medium notifications they receive.
Despite these missing features, my team and I still managed to create one of the largest publications on philosophy and spirituality. However, running a pub like this caused personal problems between editors, writers who refused to follow rules, a never-ending email chain, and eventually, resentment.
I resented Medium for not helping the people they depended on to keep their platform profitable, and writers for causing drama. I resented the publication for taking so much time away from my children so that I could edit, write, and manage. I wanted it to stop, but felt guilty if I stepped away. I owed my writers results and needed to carry on. Eventually, however, I couldn’t take it anymore.
Taoism teaches us to let things come and then calmly let them go. Despite the money, notoriety, and success, I lost my love for writing, and that‘s how I knew it was time to go. So, in March 2024, I started an extended break to regain my passion.
Hiatus and Return
By December, I found myself in the middle of a nervous breakdown, and I was placed back on anxiety medication. I spent the next 90 days learning new routines at home with my family, remembering how to breathe, and finding joy in rereading Tao Te Ching. I even wrote an article about politics — something I always refused to do.
I returned to Medium in early February 2025, hoping to find a calmer, more enjoyable platform. While I was happy to write again, I was not happy with the state of affairs. Most of the editing team had left or stopped working, except for one. Article submissions were far from their previous highs, and payments were down for everyone, everywhere. TTO views per month sank 90% to 20,000.
I connected with old writing friends and found many had moved to Substack, so I also posted a few articles there. To my surprise, my stories resonated, too! I also met a fantastic group of talented individuals. So, while one platform felt alive and fun and created features that writers and readers could use, the other continued its decline.
They hadn’t implemented a single change to how editing queues were managed or how publications were maintained. Medium hadn’t created any new forms of revenue other than charging more for the same subscriptions in the hope that a few extra pennies could be shared around to those readers you read. They decided ‘meta’ articles (posts about Medium) weren’t worth paying for at all, in hopes that would boost payments to others.
Next, they removed payments from the referral program, which had long since retired but whose monthly payments had continued. Nearly everyone I knew lost views, reads, and payments—their audience evaporated. We all exported our email subscribers and took them to new platforms in an attempt to hold onto the communities we so desperately built.
The final straw, however, occurred secretly around April 15, 2025. Medium updated a support article regarding how the “Follower” and “Subscriber” features worked. Previously, followers and subscribers were separate. A follower worked like Twitter, adjusting your algorithmic feed to show you similar content. Subscribers would receive emails for every article you published.
The ability to export your subscribers’ emails and take the list with you is a standard and key feature in the publishing industry. If you want to give a TED Talk, get ready to be asked how many people are on your subscriber list. If you want a book deal or a public speaking engagement, how many are on your list? Whether it’s from Substack, Vocal, Ghost, or any other major writing platform, the list can always be taken with you.
While video social sites like TikTok or YouTube would never think about giving out subscriber email addresses, taking your email list with you is standard practice everywhere that encourages long-form content… but not on Medium. Not anymore.
Light Always Follows Darkness
I began writing on Medium to share what I learned. I created a publication to allow others to learn, share, and grow, but how can we do that when writers can’t control who sees their work?
How can we do that when readers don’t even see the writers they love in their feed? There’s not even a tab to see ONLY people you follow! You either let everyone you follow email blast you, hope they magically appear in your homepage feed, or you find your own method of connecting, just like I’ve always done — find my own way.
I love writing, sharing, learning, and growing; I don’t love Medium. Instead, I love the idea of Medium — a place to gather and care for ourselves and each other.
I realized this week that TTO can no longer fulfil its original purpose. The people who worked tirelessly for it are mostly gone, and the audience who needs to read its wisdom and knowledge can’t because Medium makes it increasingly difficult to do so as wave after wave of AI-generated garbage floods its submission queues.
I can’t ask any more writers to join a publication when the platform it sits on does so many things to make life difficult for young talent. As Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine stated recently, I have two options.
Take TTO private with my website.
Move to a more open and accepting writing platform.
I choose option two.
Medium is the Apple of writing platforms — clean, simple, and incredibly easy to open an account and immediately start writing. However, Medium has also begun to take on the bad aspects of Apple. No new features that users desperately need; platform lock-in; removing features people loved (colorizing your homepage, for example); deciding what is allowed to make money; not understanding the dangers and power AI has had on their industry.
The Taoist Online Will Return
Starting June 1, 2025, I will move The Taoist Online to Substack as a newsletter. Moving away from the online magazine format means I can slow down submissions and spend time with each article. This lessens the stress I place upon my family and allows each article to breathe. It also means that anyone subscribing to The Taoist Online on Substack will always stay with us no matter where we go because Substack allows us to export email lists. Should Substack change this, I’ll gladly move on and take our readers with us.
Never again will I give a writing platform the ability to gatekeep everything so many have worked for; everything that I have worked for.
I don’t believe Medium has the best interests of readers and writers anymore.
Substack isn’t a perfect platform by any means, and it has its own quirks, problems, and feature issues, but at least I see them trying. Podcasts, video hosting, notes, and many other features are created for anyone who needs them.
The possibilities are so great that even if it fails, I will have tried one final time to make TTO what it once was, what I always intended it to be.
A free community publication for sharing and learning about philosophy, wisdom, and spirituality.
I hope that you join us there, too. We all need someone to pick up, to guide us, and a place to share our struggles. Let’s do it together at The Taoist Online.
Thank you, all. Goodbye Medium.
Do you want to help others learn about Tao?
I’d love your support at any level that is comfortable for you.
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Patrick, this is amazing! I can’t wait to dive in ✨
Highly informative. Thank you. 🙏