Medium has yet to turn a profit. That's worth keeping in mind.

If they were truly making big money, I'd expect a larger share of it. As it is, I'm happy to pay in and get back a little, each month, and to do it because I'm having fun doing it.

"Fun" is a form of payment, in my view. (I mean, we pay for movies, right? In the theater, we pay $8 for a tub of popcorn and $10+ for each ticket! We don't have anyone taping cash to the bottom of our chairs - it's all one way.)

That said, we are also building content for Medium - and that content IS the value proposition, should Medium be sold to a third party. So again, if you imagine that third party being Disney (just for example purposes), the contract - the TOS - even as written TODAY, would technically enable them to adapt a good story to a movie or an animated film. I don't think that's what any of us envision here - and we'd expect credit and compensation.

Also, it's important for writers to understand that their various "rights" under copyright are severable. It's not all or nothing. This is literally how J.K. Rowling got richer than the Queen - by selling rights piecemeal (and having a good agent/attorney, to advise her on this). Each success raised the value - and the price - of the next.