Here's the real truth, like it or not. I gain as many followers through meaningful engagement as i do through writing stories, and I know that each follower has zero MPP value but is priceless to me as I know something I wrote positively impacted a person's life at least that one time that someone followed me. And i would not trade my Medium experience for all the tea in China, as I believe I met my forever person here. None of that excuses Medium for being no better than a pyramid scheme, while I know that definition does not exactly fit, I know of which I speak. https://medium.com/illumination/is-medium-a-malignant-narcissist-1f3d55793bf6 and this latest nonsense with affiliate marketing just seals the deal--I cannot believe how many writers cannot do math--if 50% of each referred subscriber's fees goes to the referrer, then after overhead and profit, next to nothing will go into the MPP pool for reads.