Well, we are going to have to disagree. :) The $50 I paid Medium was repaid within a few months, and thereafter has been repaid many times over. So while I’m sure that there are writers who do not recoup that money, I don’t think it can be used as a generalisation.

I also don’t think Medium has stopped growing. I checked with Alexa a while ago, and traffic is dropping, but then I’ve seen that pattern with many publiation through the decades.