I come from a culture which is so rude asking or saying how much someone earns, that, honestly, when I first started seeing those articles I always felt ashamed for them.

Then I understood that they made that for money, because you know, it's like honey to bears ... ( better than honey to beas right? I love Winnie the Pooh :) ...

When I first opened a medium account, back in 2017 ( it was not this one), my excitement was really if anyone would even read my story, back then I didn't have any idea that we could make money out of this, or about any Medium Partner Program, I really don't know if such thing existed. I barely read other people's articles because I didn't want to pay 5 dollars a month. Now that I can easily have that money back..

Do I still get the same excitement? a question to ask myself I know. But maybe it's just different. But I do remember back then if I had one person reading my story I would feel so happy!! I just wanted anyone to "hear me" and to read what I was writing. The feeling was really genuine.

Thanks for writing this :)