I understand Medium's aversion to displaying adverts. If you look at most mainstream news sites without an advert blocker installed on your browser, it's a total shitshow. The adverts distract you from reading the articles, and the articles are structured terribly to maximise earnings from the adverts. Most of it is just useless clickbait.

Of course, Medium could have more discreet adverts that don't distract you while you're reading. But those adverts won't pay much because they will be ineffective. Advertising is only effective if it distracts people. Advertisers will only pay decent money for adverts that people will notice. Put yourself in their shoes. If you were paying for advertising on a website, would you pay a lot for adverts that everyone ignores? Nope, me neither.

I can only speak for myself, but if I had not visited Medium before, and I landed on an article full of adverts, which had a banner saying I could get rid of the adverts if I paid a monthly fee, it probably wouldn't cause me to sign up. I use an advert-blocking plugin anyway. And any sites that don't allow me to view them with an adblocker installed, I don't visit those sites.

Is it worth dedicating lots of time to writing content for Medium? Probably not. As you say, it's too unpredictable. Plus, it's somebody else's platform. Tony could change the rules at a moment's notice. Tony's priority is to provide a website that readers are happy to pay $5 for. His priority is not to make us writers wealthy.

Some top writers use Medium to promote their own stuff outside of Medium. For example, Tim Denning promoting his courses. Or people try to get their readers to sign up for their Substack or whatever. You can do that if you provide value and aren't blatantly spammy about it.

Another strategy would be to write SEO-optimised articles that contain affiliate links to related products. Again, you're allowed to do that if you're not blatantly spammy about it. And it would be a way to potentially earn money from external views.

But just churning out endless articles on Medium, hoping that Medium one day pays you enough? That's endlessly chasing after the dangling carrot.

But it depends on what your goal is. If you want a ready-made audience for your thoughts and opinions, it's worthwhile. But if you want a consistent side income, there are probably better ways to do that.