I agree that UX complaints miss the bigger picture. Lots of the highest-traffic sites have terrible UX. Lots of people will put up with poor UX if it delivers the content/product they want. Poor UX does not help -- but it's not the main failing of Medium, in my opinion.
Medium has been plagued with endless "pivots" -- not sure if it was wimpy yes-men who had to give in to every U-turn from the founder or if it was just fundamentally bad ideas. They also let the Substack idea pass them by, which can only be described as embarrassing.
On the other hand, your point about Medium flailing away trying different features to add to the bottom line is poignant. Very few written-content publications have figured out monetization. There's always a tension between ads, which yuck up the experience, and paywalls, which hobble virality and penalize your most passionate users.
Medium has been plagued with endless "pivots" -- not sure if it was wimpy yes-men who had to give in to every U-turn from the founder or if it was just fundamentally bad ideas. They also let the Substack idea pass them by, which can only be described as embarrassing.
On the other hand, your point about Medium flailing away trying different features to add to the bottom line is poignant. Very few written-content publications have figured out monetization. There's always a tension between ads, which yuck up the experience, and paywalls, which hobble virality and penalize your most passionate users.