Medium pays MPP for internal reads. Those are reads by paying members. The only stat that matters is minutes read by members. We receive approximately $0.03 per minute read. It's that simple.

As for having lots of followers, having lots of followers does not equate to getting reads. The distribution algorithm is a mystery to everyone. Moreover, if you think about it, and I'll exaggerate to make a point, if each of your 1000 followers follows only 100 people, and you each publish once a day, for every follow to equal a read each follower would have to read 100 stories a day.