I made one entry at the last minute because the story I wrote that morning fit the criteria. I’m spoiled, $50,000 would not change my life, so I hesitated even then because I’d rather have it go to someone needy. It probably will go to someone already wildly popular, though.

I think Medium runs contests for publicity. They need more paying members. I think they’d be smart to offer membership tiers: better stats for $10 a month, priority curation judgements for another $5 and so on. For a lot of us, $5 is next to nothing.