It's easy to criticize Medium, and I wish they started with direct monetization earlier or went 100% native ads. Now Medium has somewhat limited choice. Reason

It's easy to criticize Medium, and I wish they started with direct monetization earlier or went 100% native ads. Now Medium has somewhat limited choice. Reason is because it's not a publisher, it's a platform for different types of publishers. Site-wide paywall won't work, since majority of writers do not want to limit access to their content and publish to get eyeballs. Metered access might solve that problem but a lot of testing is needed to figure out right amount of access limiting, so casual readers would never see a wall. Premium section might work but big question is how to split revenue among writers and how to select writers. Share based on recommend count? Perhaps. How much would Medium have after payouts? Premium feature(s) would work but what. Giving existing, relatively big, publishers a monetization tool to create and manage subscriptions. Big question here is again, how much Medium would make after payouts? Premium section seems like a lot of work but could work. Attracting big publishers and giving them great CMS and great way to monetize might work as well but it is a very different path.