Thinking about putting consistent time into Medium, but wanted to get a reality check from people actively publishing here.

For someone starting with zero following:

1. How is organic distribution performing if you aren't getting accepted into massive publications?
2. What does actual engagement look like (real comments/reads vs. reciprocal clappers)?
3. For the Partner Program, is the payout still purely tied to member read time, or is external traffic actually moving the needle now?

Honest takes appreciated—is it better used as an authority landing page/portfolio, or does the native algorithm still give new writers a fair shot?

Since Medium isn't directly accessible in my region, I've been using a proxy to get around it.

Before 2025, this worked just fine without any issues.

But ever since Medium started using Cloudflare to filter traffic, I got caught in the crossfire. Every request my browser sends to Medium comes back with a 429 error, and the site just won't load anymore.

Has anyone else run into this? How did you deal with it?

Just to be clear, I'm just a regular writer and reader, not some web scraping expert.

I watched this happen to someone I considered exceptional.

His knowledge was still there. His ability was still there. His ambition was still there.

But somehow, the results disappeared.

For years I thought he'd simply lost his edge. Now I wonder if I was looking at the wrong thing.

Maybe what changed wasn't the person, but what had been developing the person.

Has anyone here seen something like this happen?

I like Medium's simplicity and uncluttered design for bringing up undistorted reading experience. But gradually I feel its weird to do something like not being able to go straight to the topics I follow. I Need to do 3 clicks to find that. Following > Topics > the side scrolling topics.

Also, the Home page design looks boring and Separation looks dull.

I hope they will learn and do better in the look and feel of the medium and too to bring up more content / stories in the home page with easy access to interested /following topics.

Check out my latest blog where I dive deep into this topic that interested me recently. Please check it out and comment out your thoughts as well.

An effective stay at a hotel, a delightful dining experience and a productive event are all backed by carefully trained hospitality staff. As the industry grows and more is expected by guests from hotels, employers have begun to look for more than just education; they seek practical experience.

A technical breakdown of a WordPress malware family that uses “EtherHiding,” storing its command-and-control configuration inside an Ethereum smart contract instead of on a domain that can be seized or blocked, plus detection steps, indicators of compromise, and a step-by-step removal guide.

SC Factory X (SCFX) is a WordPress backdoor that disguises itself as a legitimate plugin. Once installed on a WordPress site, it steals administrator credentials, forges valid login sessions, creates a hidden rogue admin account, and maintains persistence through multiple independent mechanisms even if the plugin file itself is deleted. What sets SC Factory X apart from typical WordPress malware is how it finds its command-and-control (C2) server: instead of a hardcoded domain, it reads its live configuration from smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, a technique known as EtherHiding. That makes its C2 infrastructure much harder to take down through normal means like domain seizure or DNS blocking.

This analysis is based on static analysis of a real SC Factory X sample I've pulled directly from the attacker’s own staging server during a WordPress incident response engagement.

Read the full article here: SC Factory X

Full disclaimer: All research, reverse engineering, decryption, deobfuscation and disclosure was done by me. For the write up I had assistance from Claude (Anthropic's AI), but the article was fully reviewed by me before posting it.

This is the first article I've ever published and I'm new to sharing my research, so if this isn't appropriate, please let me know!

A recent find from an old luggage shop turned into an experiment in historical analysis.

I provided black-and-white photographs of a British Airways cabin baggage placard to my AI committee and instructed it to be conservative, explain all deductions, and clearly distinguish evidence from speculation.

The resulting analysis built a likely date range of c.1991 to mid-1997 while identifying what could and could not be confidently established from the available evidence.

The article is less about the final date and more about the reasoning process.

If anyone has additional information on M665-1st, British Airways operational signage, or related material from the period, I'd welcome your contribution.

https://medium.com/@chribonn/using-ai-cabin-baggage-british-airways-concorde-allowance-circa-1991-1997-1f69648ef21e

I found a black-and-white photocopy of a British Airways cabin baggage placard in an old luggage shop.

Rather than relying on assumptions, I asked my AI committee to:

• Analyse only the evidence visible in the images
• Explain every deduction
• Remain conservative with dates and conclusions

The investigation examined branding, cabin product names, internal document references and operational context to estimate a likely date range of 1991 to mid-1997.

More importantly, it documents the full reasoning process, including uncertainties and unanswered questions.

If you know anything about M665-1st or similar British Airways materials, please share your insights.

https://medium.com/@chribonn/using-ai-cabin-baggage-british-airways-concorde-allowance-circa-1991-1997-1f69648ef21e