I was a Medium subscriber for a pretty long time. I'd seen some interesting, incisive stuff, so I subscribed. I'm happy to pay for quality. But shortly after I subscribed, the content I found was almost exclusively vapid self-promoters writing many, many words without any value about the latest buzzword they'd heard. It was so strange. The underlying tension between open, democratic platform, quality standards, and engagement is, clearly, not an easy one to resolve. I don't even claim to pretend to have an answer, but I would love to be in a position to pay for quality content on an open(ish) platform again someday.