Medium doesn't pay us at all just for writing. Our income is based on number and read time by members only, no matter how many readers we get via search engines like Google.. Unless you have a deal different from the rest of us, all payment comes through the Medium Partner program.

You get NOTHING from external views, google or otherwise.

There are millions of us whose MPP earnings fall into the laughable range of at best a few $ /month. Massive google numbers don't get you a single penny.

It's OUR money that finances those big prizes.

Hey, if they don't refer other Medium members to us, they can save a whole lot of money for those prizes. Which is probably what expains the fact that so many who were earning high bucks have dropped to less than 5% of what they were getting before.