Why not? Medium never stipulated that the ONLY way it has to pay writers is only with those $5...remember, they leave it just vague enough to give you an idea, but clearly this data shows me that with all I've read - it never meant the writers were not getting paid.

I've never believed that. This made it clear to me.

At $0.03 a minute - that would mean I can only read about 3 hours of articles for the month! That's insanely small - that couldn't keep the platform alive.

Bottom line: telling people if you read too much, you are not helping writers is bogus.