I'm surprised there's no mention of the 3 visit limit unless you have a subscription.<p>And when often enough one of those three feels like "wasn't worth it" you quickly lose interest.<p>Ultimately, 20% of the content was driving 80% of the interest / traffic. When those creators move elsewhere things begin to shift pretty fast.
I agree with some of the points Simon makes... but also the site has 135 million visits a month, there's a ton of legs here to leverage the platform and build a viable business. I don't think this is the end of medium, I think it's the end of the beginning.
persuasive analysis.<p>'Creators search for audience' is the key, no one posts into an empty room. Look at HN, instance, if you got no karma or engagement at all would you be motivated to post here? We output in order to receive input, absent this and we all go elsewhere