So I just went into the Medium Help Support pages and read through the instructions. It's very clear that as long as they are 18, in the right country, have 100 followers, and publish one time - that's all they need to start writing and can monetize. So, Medium is allowing them to earn regardless of membership.

What it means is: if they are not members - when they read, it in no way contributes to the writer's earnings. So to Suzy's point, they are earning but aren't contributing to the pot.

Maybe from Medium's point of view - they just want writers and they think the more that's out there, the more variety of articles to read.

I just never imagined non-members would monetize their articles. But if they are not members, then they technically cannot read any of the member-only articles.

So they are just writing...therefore, they can't really ramp up the kind of engagement that members can - so in a way, I don't see how they could be making any significant amount of money.