A little update: it turns out, in one of the many TOS changes that Medium was sneaking past us, they DID make us pay in order to publish paid content.

How did I find out? It's time to renew my yearly membership and I clicked cancel, to be promptly informed that being paid for my articles is one of the privileges I am paying for.

I guess it is time for me to do a Peter Beck and get a blender and a hat.

Sorry to have doubted you ^^