Medium and Ghost have two different goals, AFAIK. I'd say they I see Ghost closer to the Wordpress ethos. For media companies lack of control over look and feel in Medium has been a friction point, I think Ghost offers a lot more flexibility in that sense, but I haven't check ghost or ghost.org recently, tbh.

Not sure Medium is cutting back on efforts, though, as much as they are trying for a new business model that doesn't rely so much on advertising.