As far as I know, no one earns significant money writing on Medium (maybe Tim Denning?). A few hundred bucks a month is top 10% easy. What the site does allow you to do is build an audience that you can then monetize in other ways. Most other sites like Facebook, Instagram, etc pay zero for writing and building an audience, so Medium is way better than those, in my opinion. YouTube can have bigger gains, but only for a very few creators and after much more effort (it can take years of consistent publishing on YT before you can qualify to get paid). The problem is one of expectations. If you expect Medium to pay you a living wage or replace your day job, you will be disappointed. If you are happy to actually get paid to build an audience instead of doing it for free, then Medium is a great way to start. Medium shares half of the total revenue of new members that sign up through your link. Half! Forever! That is insanely high. Not sure they would have a business if they paid more. To pay more they would have to significantly reduce the number of authors that qualify.