I'm somewhat in two minds about this, but leaning towards thinking it's perhaps a good thing. On the one hand, some people might want to just publish articles but not read, so why should they have to pay? But on the other hand, the $5 fee could be considered as paying for the privilege of having your articles published on one of the biggest advert-free websites in the world. After all, there is a ready-made audience here, and we don't have to concern ourselves with all the behind-the-scenes technical aspects of running a website.

One thing's for sure, Medium puts many other websites to shame. All the clickbait-filled news sites that rely on advertising are journalistic disasters by comparison.