I get a lot of comments from new (or established) writers that suggest Medium would be paying its writers based on reads.

I know what they mean, but reads are not the meaningful metric to look at here.

Example: I have a post with over 14K reads, yet it only made me $2.69 to date.

!https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*0AbVBqzBjj37Szt1zbsi6A.png

Screenshot by Burk

Why?

Because just like views, reads can come from external sources, meaning non-members or free account holders. In that case, a read does mean that somebody not only viewed your story but read more of it, however, it won’t translate to any money. Because it’s an external read.

The meaningful metric is member reading time. Only that translates to money as this measures the time spent on your story by paying Medium members.