Enjoyed the perspectives you provided here. In my experience, I've never made much on Medium, no matter how many views and reads my stories have garnered.

I believe the issue is that Medium doesn't compensate writers for stories that have high external engagement, no matter how much traffic their story brings to Medium. In many cases, I've received more reads and viewership for my stories from sharing them on other platforms e.g., X, LinkedIn, e-mail, etc., than from Medium partner program members.

And in these cases, for the multiple thousands of views and reads I received on a story, Medium would shell out a few pennies, if that. I presume, as I mentioned already, this is because Medium doesn't pay writers for views and reads they receive from non partner program members.

The problem? Well, by this logic, a million people on the web could read your story, and if none of them are members of Medium's partner program, you'll have a million reads and earn nothing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this has been my experience. Something about this just never sat well with me. Still doesn't.