Wow, this was a great article that got me thinking at 8 am in the morning! Thank you! You raised a lot of interesting questions, and I have thought about this myself. But I liked your approach on this topic, especially with your reference to Stephen Hawking.

I would love to see Medium revise their system, so that readers and writers are clearly defined. Perhaps this is something you could even send to them as feedback. Because you are correct. Those who are strictly readers may not necessarily pay $5/month to be on this platform, which means that we are depending on each other as readers also (which is fine too, since it has been such a supportive community!) But I think the key to monetizing your blog is also to be expanding your services to e-books, videos, etc.

Medium is a great stepping stone for building a following, and I think it depends entirely on your goals.

That being said, I did thoroughly enjoy your writing so I will be following to read more stories you post in the future!