When my Medium account was accidentally suspended I was gifted one month of free membership. During that month I learned that the articles behind the paywall weren’t better than the ones that were free. In fact, quite the opposite. I found the paid articles were more clickbait-y than the free ones, more mainstream, less thought-provoking. I learned that I get more value from the Indie-free-sharing writers than the mainstream “pro’s”. I also found that the writers with a lot of followers and claps tend to run the risk of falling into the trap of continuing to do their “trick” instead of discovering new tricks. One is not better than the other. There are different target audiences with different needs.