Seems like Medium has listened to the feedback: no more pop-ups, overlays, intrusive headers or other distractions, custom domains are back, improved distribution and discovery. And the platform pays reasonably well for original content put behind their paywall. (Of course, put your content on your own platform and never worry about them pulling their previous stunts again.)
Some problems remain: captions and tables are still broken, and accessibility is poor.
But I would probably now again recommend the platform for anyone looking for free text-oriented blogging with nice network effects. (If you don’t need or want the network lookie-loos and don’t want to manage a site but want to perhaps get some payment I’d suggest looking at making a newsletter through a site like substack; the insane recent growth of indie newsletters is probably partly responsible for Medium’s turnaround.)
