I'd expect for them to monetize on ads. And ads show up regardless of registration status.
"X free articles." OK. Fine.
How much does a subscription cost? No idea. That info isn't available without a signup. [1]
This is so fucking stupid. With other content sites I can see a price and I can decide if I think it's worth it.
With Medium it feels like they have something to hide.
Obviously I didn't sign up and I didn't click through.
If the content was good enough and if it was worth the money I would. But they way Medium is now, neither of those important details is visible.
[1] Or by Googling. Which works, but...
On top of that, they don't let you specifically log into an account. They let you type in an email address, which will either log into an existing account or create a new account. Better hope you use the same email for every site. Also better hope you're not trying to check if an account exists or not, because the process of checking will just create a new account if not.
This is also a bad idea IMO because it brings up the feeling of "if you have to ask..."
I cannot agree more. The brand has destroyed itself by putting everything behind a login/pay-wall. I don't even click on medium.com links anymore, regardless of how interesting the content may be. And if I accidentally click on one, I click the back button in less than a second.
I understand the desire to monetize, but this is not the way.