For the record I was really excited when Medium came out and loved the simple, open, no-clutter style it had. But fast-forward to today and it's now very different.
See the dead simple layout: https://kemendo.com/
I do wish they allowed email subscriptions but from what I understand that is coming soon. I also don't love the "published with write.as" text at the bottom of every page for paid accounts but that's no big deal.
The combination of open source, reasonable (actually directly inexpensive IMO) hosting, simplicity (but not dumbness or lack of features), the fact that they are already part of the fediverse and seems generally nice was my reasons for subscribing.
Notice that if you pick $12, a billing section appears, but if you click the $0 such that the $0 button is greyed, it is replaced with captcha
This is a great default ... but weird in terms of colour / selection choice being misleading?
If that was planned, nice way to get some attention ;)