Manu, you leave the best comments. Interesting thing about the google/yahoo debate 20 years ago is that Google only gave the impression of showing it all. They used algorithms that Yahoo could only dream of. Truth is Google changes the algorithm 600 times/month when they see stuff floating to the top that they don’t think belongs there.

Then people think “beating the algorithm” is SEO. It’s not, of course. True SEO is understanding what Google wants to elevate and delivering that. Medium operates pretty much the same way. If you can figure out what they elevate (distribution) and deliver it regularly, you’ll do okay.

Last paragraph — you nailed that. But I still think if it doesn’t start to perform better, the time we writers invested may not matter as much as we hope it will. I truly hope I’m wrong on that one, but the costs of running this site have to be considerable. And you’re right — 35M is nothing for a site of this magnitude.