Story of my life. Can confirm, does work as a strategy and people get upset about everything anyway, so why not?

Also, this wasn't really a risk for Medium. Prior to you being here, Medium spent an absolute fuck tonne of money paying professional journalists to run the 'Medium Publications'. They were on $300 per story per week as a flat rate. When Medium let them go, in March 2021 - it meant that they had a) more money to play with b) more engaged readers with a far greater variety of voices being promoted and c) a chance to re-engage older indie writers who got sidelined.

I think it's a great marketing strategy, if I'd been given $500 in my first few months on the site, I'd be prepared to marry Medium and dedicate my soul to it for all eternity. This is the thing that dreams are made of - and someone in the Medium headoffice has finally realised the benefit of finanicial reward and kudos across the spectrum.