I think this is the plan: a $5/month blogging platform for the extended MPP countries - above all the Indian subcontinent, with a population of nearly two billion - which also serves as a lottery ticket which might return your money, or if you're lucky net you $20, maybe even $100.

So long as Medium skim their take off the top of that $5, they don't care what anyone writes.

The recent push for academic content is just to have something fancy to put in the shop window and maintain the pretence of editorial quality - the Boost likewise.

But their cash comes from the slop swilling around in the sewers below ground.

'Where there's muck, there's brass', as we say in Northern England.