But the bottom line is that content marketers, life hack gurus, and tech bros with huge followings will make almost all of the money, regardless of how repetitive, derivative or idiotic their writing is.

To make any money, a writer would need be lucky enough to have a piece go viral, or become really good at building a following through social media, which leads back to the route taken by the people who already dominate Medium.

IMO, the business plan for Medium was to figure out a way to modify the sharing economy shell game in a way that would appeal to the writers (not outside readers) to become subscribers.

UBER’s model might have helped consumers save some money on cab fares, but the macroeconomic result of their business model is to redirect cab fare revenue in such a way that UBER drivers make less money than cab drivers and assume all the risks (car depreciation, insurance, and out of pocket accident costs), while theübermänner who control the company make boatloads of money.