I’ve been thinking about what you wrote here, Anangsha, and you’ve made me see things with much more clarity. You’re right that the obvious preference is for content with mass appeal. That is Medium’s choice and if I want to be happy here I have to accept that.

If I go on with this I’ll be fighting against the flow when what I should be doing is working to find our niche. When I chose to focus on creative nonfiction for my pub I chose it because I saw a need to highlight writing that isn’t a read-and-toss, that sings but doesn’t shout, that takes time to write and to read, that, in the end, resonates and stays with us.

The very appeal of creative nonfiction is the beauty of it, the savoring of language, the rhythm and flow. Writers of creative nonfiction take their time. It’s a rare piece that’s publishable without many drafts. It’s the story AND the language and our writers want to get it right. And obviously it’s not for everybody. Still, there has always been a community for it and I was hoping we could build one here at Medium.

The comparison to YouTube fits in so many ways. The mass appeal, the ability to make instant stars, and the amazing diversity. You can find anything there, even the most esoteric. If there’s a video out there, you’ll find it on YouTube.

But the greatest value of YouTube to me is their search mechanism. It’s brilliant. It’s the Google of video, only better. I can type in a name, a word, or a combination of words, and not only will the video I’m looking for appear, but companion videos, either related or somewhat related, will come up on the right sidebar. I can spend hours there if I’m not careful. And I’ll find videos I never knew existed. And I can share them easily. There is no firewall.

If Medium could somehow build a search bar like that — and get rid of their firewall, while I’m at it — I think they’d be on to something big. As it is, much of what’s here is hidden away, with no easy way to find it.

But thanks so much for writing this. A lot to think about.