It's sad that we don't value incremental improvement or realize that pretty much everything "revolutionary" were incremental improvements on something else. iPods, iPhones, laptops, Google Search, etc.

Whether or not Medium is "remarkable or innovative" is whether it becomes successful. If it's successful than it's remarkable and people will bend over backwards to determine what innovations made that possible.

Innovative is different than remarkable though, which just means "worth talking about." Why something became more successful than some other virtually identical thing is almost always remarkable.

Some other virtually identical remarkable thing will have at least one "innovation" that sets it apart. Often identified only in hind-sight.

Or it won't, and it'll just be the right time, the right place or the right connections.

surely "pretty" can be legitimately considered a core feature of a blog site

He came up with Twitter, too.