Why Medium Needs to Allow Us to Follow Lists

It would make the lists feature so much more useful

Piqsels

I recently researched whether large publications on Medium are a waste of time. After that, I also wrote about how publications are not necessary to trend on Medium.

But there are still two possible benefits to publications:

• As a writer, you can get the help of an editor to improve your writing.
• As a reader, you can view a curated selection of high-quality stories on a particular topic.

But if you are a writer who doesn’t want your work to be messed with, self-publishing might be better. Then you can have complete control over your work.

For curating content on a specific topic, a list can provide the same function as a publication but without most of the hassle:

• No need for writers to apply to be added.
• No need for an editor to wade through a submissions queue.

There’s just one significant way that lists fall short — we cannot follow them.

Medium could easily remedy this by allowing us to follow lists. If we like a particular member’s choice of content on a topic, we can follow their list(s), and when they add new stories to the list(s), Medium can…