Hi, Jonathan. I’ve read a few stories about Medium’s partnership with newspapers. Here’s one by a Medium staff person. And, this one from Oct 2017, is eye-opening. It appears Medium selects these stories and newspapers can take a guaranteed deal of $200 or so per piece or get paid by the clap. Of course, things change, but it is an interesting read. So, yeah, all your points are valid. There are also plenty of people here who protest and refuse to read the big names here.