[gumby]

> Medium requires an image

Is that why so many medium posts have an irrelevant and distracting image that has to be scrolled past? What an idiotic requirement.

Medium claims to have awesome presentation but I always read their articles in “reader” mode to get rid of the pointless distractions.

[CM30]

It's not a Medium requirement. I've published plenty of articles without images, and the site just adds a blank box as a placeholder.

However, a lot of 'become popular on Medium' guides recommend you use an image, and an image likely looks better than a blank box does, hence all the images.

[btrettel]

I didn't know about this requirement either. I'm reminded of what Jakob Nielsen has written on the subject:

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/photos-as-web-content/

> Summary: Users pay close attention to photos and other images that contain relevant information but ignore fluffy pictures used to "jazz up" web pages.