Then got bored of it, which was dumb, as a properly integrated - or at least robustly bolted-on - Mastodon server would have allowed Medium to incorporate the Notes functionality of Substack, which in turn would have alleviated some of the frustration at Medium's distribution, since people could - as they do on SS - publicise their own posts via Mastodon, not only among their own circle, but also the wider Fediverse. Which would surely have been a win-win-win. Missed opportunity, in my opinion.

Tiny development resource budget, since it's already sitting there in the sidebar - it just needed to be made more prominent and have a one-click promotional button added, and also be included as a selected by default option on sign-up so all Medium users would have a linked Mastodon account as well.