Yeup, I don't go to Medium, except when articles are posted here, or the couple other sites I visit where I let either editorial or community selected content drift up into my consciousness.

I will add that a lot of the stuff on Medium seems pretty 'self aggrandizing' (not the best word I'm looking for, but the gist is close enough). I'm not sure why it feels that way compared to people's blogs that they maintain themselves....maybe it's the whole 'OMG, I got a Medium account, I'm going to promote the @!#%$ out of myself." Anyway, that's sort of the stigma I give to content on Medium when I click through to read something there...

That may be a tough thing for them to monetize. Generally websites do better owning the customer experience and then farming the users out for content after they're already engaged. (Think Facebook) But I concur - being the recipient of the referral does seem to be the way for Medium to go. They're run by people who understand social media and viral behavior, so I do believe they have a master plan of some kind.