why is Medium blocked in some countries? Or are you saying it is paywalled without supporting your local currency?
Asking because I wasn't aware that some countries block things as bland as Medium.
China blocks the whole site. Other authoritarian countries block it for a while whenever somebody posts something that ruffles feathers there. Egypt and Malaysia have blocked it a couple of times.
It is blocked in Vietnam. Normally here you don't really need a good reason to censor things. Just one random dissident writing something on Medium is good enough to block the entire domain.
Medium is blocked on some ISPs in Vietnam. My guess is because "overseas agitators" use it to talk shit about the government.