Thanks, Joe! :-)

And just for the record, I’m not against writing challenges in general. It’s just — as you realized — this challenge’s particular payout structure that I find ludicrous.

I mean, most of us are working for pennies here. So I think something like a $5,000 jackpot would have been more than enough incentive.

I even worry that having a huge $60,000 jackpot might backfire as a long-term incentive for writers. Sure, one writer will be over the moon. The rest? They’ll probably tear apart the winner’s submission, criticize it in all ways possible, wonder whether the whole challenge was fair, whether there was some behind the scenes politics, favoritism, etc. In other words, I worry that challenges like these in the end will poison instead of motivate the writing community at large.

It’s one thing if a single writer makes $60,000 because of unfathomable reasons like the obscure workings of an algorithm or the tastes of the masses. It’s very different when Medium as an entity consciously decides to not give that money to anyone but one writer they deliberately chose as their favorite.

But let’s see… Maybe there will be a clear winner everyone will be happy with and I’m just too cynical ;-)