I agree with this entirely. And to compare the referral program to MLM as some have done, makes no sense. But what concerns me for most writers is that Medium may be trying to replace payments from read time with payments from referrals. And if so, that's an issue, and one that hurts most writers who don't have large off-Medium social media followings. I've noticed this personally. I'm lucky to have a lot of FB and Twitter followers, so when I post the referral link I get some new people to sign up. Right now, I have 80 referred members, but as that number has crept up--and as my follower and email reader count did too-- my monthly income hasn't budged. This can only happen because Medium is throttling down on the algorithm to basically pay people more from new members than existing ones and read time. Basically they're trying to make us get members for them for more and more of our payout. For me this is fine because I have enough people following me to make it pay well. But for most people this seems highly unfair.