Sorry, I am setting up on subStack so got hung up on terms. Yes, here on Medium "subscribers" are your free readers and "referred members" are your paying fan base.

I have 1,063 "subscribers" and 1 "referred member".

That referred member is about $2.46 per month. Overall, my 1,000 subscribers generate about $100 per month for me, but they put something like 5K into the pot.

If I had 1K referred memberships, my take would be $2,460 per month for me and $2,540 for the pot. Which MEDIUM then takes its cut of.

The incentives are clear.

All of the member referred payments come "off the top" before MEDIUM pays out the per minute allocations. Smaller pot, smaller per minute payouts.

When they started the “referred members” system of payments this was the predictable result. The writers who aggressively market themselves and get those member referred payments are draining money out of the system at the expense of the Collective.

However, it makes MEDIUM more appealing to “BIG NAME” writers. Ones that people will sign up on Medium just to read.

It gives MEDIUM a way to entice them with the possibility of big monthly checks.