Perhaps you've noticed that for the past three months, payments have been much later than usual. It's possible that there is a cash flow problem.

The other thing is that I've been writing on writing sites since about 2000 (writing.com and Associated Content being some of the first). I have watched all writing sites go through the same pattern.

They start off willing to pay writers well, then as the numbers increase, they reach a point where they have sufficient writers they drop the earning rate. Eventually, they disrespect the writers to such a degree that writers leave and the magazine fails.

Hubpages is on its last legs.

In fairness, I first joined Medium shortly after Evan Williams opened the site, in the early days of Google Plus. Evan saw what the advertising model did to Twitter and was determined to open up a writing site where it wasn't paid for by advertising.

It was running at a loss until Tony took over, and he has done two things - drop the income of writers and up the subscription fee. So, now they're in profit. He obviously has a good business head on him.

The truth is that no writing site can pay everybody a good wage for their work, otherwise, it's not feasible. Most people prefer writing to reading - so the statistics say.

Another statistic, from what I've worked out, it is always only about 5% of people who get to payout or to a certain figure. At Hubpages, only 5% reached $50 in a month, and that is when they were paying well, in about 2010. On Medium, only about 5% reach the $100 level. Those of us who reached the four figure level were a very small percentage. The carrot is, of course, that everybody can reach that. It's not feasible. The site would go bankrupt.

So there you have it.