To be honest, I really don't like the depreciation of the few free stories per month. For me, most of my views come from OFF of Medium and now everything is totally paywalled. Moreover, if I take it out from behind the paywall, the reader is bombarded with tons of popups to sign up to Medium.

I never minded the Medium branding on my articles when it was subtle but now it's completely in your face such that it's a huge turn off to the platform...