Helpful article. I started recently writing (only couple of stories so far!), however I jumped in way too quickly to upgrading to friends of medium, to my detriment. I have hardly made anything, other than $1.57 and it's hard getting followers to read nore than 30 sec or even getting followers. Furthermore was dismayed to find that despite sharing friend links for my own articles got me nothing but if I read others articles they get 4x as much. As result of this inequality I tried to change my membership back to $5 regular but couldn't unless I waited until mid next month when current friend of medium membership expired. So I ended up cancelling current membership but says I am still a member until mid next month. Each time I login it gives option to reactive my current member (?? Is it not already active?), but as I deleted my payment card I can't even do that. Now stuck in limbo land. I have membership until mid next month but since I cancelled I had no activity like followers, replies etc. It all stopped when I cancelled. I contacted medium but yet to get reply. Sucks to have this issue only starting out on my writing journey on medium.