That may be a tough thing for them to monetize. Generally websites do better owning the customer experience and then farming the users out for content after th

That may be a tough thing for them to monetize. Generally websites do better owning the customer experience and then farming the users out for content after they're already engaged. (Think Facebook) But I concur - being the recipient of the referral does seem to be the way for Medium to go. They're run by people who understand social media and viral behavior, so I do believe they have a master plan of some kind.