But reaching that 100 is critical for anyone who wants to stay in the partnership program. I totally get that F4F is not great in the long term, but Medium made a terrible decision in gatekeeping earnings like this and have forced people into artificial growth way too fast. What if someone hits a hot topic on their very first article and gets thousands of reads, but doesn't have followers yet? They don't get paid for their work. Even if they do get enough followers eventually, those reads they got before hitting 100 won't earn them money, because it seems as if the new program doesn't account retroactively. Also not paying out until you reach $10 is a bad call. I was seriously excited to get $0.14 on my first "big" story, and now Medium is depriving authors of that growth and excitement. Even if it is just a dollar a month, that is their earnings, and authors deserve to be paid. Now I've got to go from 2 to 100 followers in eight weeks, and I'm dreading it, but I'll F4F if I have to if it means keeping my partnership even for just a few cents to build up to that $10 payout...