But are there enough real readers to matter? I spend an hour every day reading the people I follow and the few pieces Medium selects that are worth the electricity.

How many of us do that and what's it worth to the authors? Probably not many and obviously not much.

As we all know, most of the writers and visitors here aren't readers at all. Many aren't even members (why does Medium pay those people??).

Too much supply, insufficient demand.

Also, I follow some 300ish people. I followed them because I read at least one post that was interesting enough that I wanted to read more. Yet very few turn up in my “following” list each day, so probably many have left. Almost 700 supposedly follow me, but obviously most don’t read anything I post. So..