There are people who have learned to read that fast. I can read between 500 and 1,000 wpm depending on the subject matter and of course can skim much faster. So, I *could* read three 500 word stories in 90 seconds to three minutes — but won’t because of the thirty second rule.

What Medium calls a five minute read seems to be based on something less than 200 wpm. They say a 500 word story is a three minute read. I doubt most reading here read that slowly. Keep that in mind too.

Also, I suspect many people don’t know about the thirty second stuff. My own sister told me that she skims stories and comes back later to read some of them. She had no idea that hurts people’ earnings.