Well, this is my third account. First time I came in April 2017. When paywall was introduced, at first, I refused to pay for access to locked articles, but in November 2017 I bit the bullet and got myself the green halo to have access to articles of people I followed. But, in January 2018, I became quite frustrated with the overall trend of Medium and attitude of its users who gladly locked out their followers for the proverbial few pieces of silver. I didn't even wait for my subscription to expire, cut my losses, and walked away determined to never look back. IIRC, I came back a month later :D
Second account, then, lasted to the end of 2018, and this one I've started in June 2019. Technically, it's my fourth iteration, but my very first stay in 2016 was only to test the waters and was roughly a month long with one article that ruffled quite a few feathers. I argued that self-pity and victim mentality are counterproductive to mental health – you should see the backlash :D
Anyway, I remembered that I've written one article about Medium and how its paywall and MPP create a segregated society. You may go through the replies to get yet a better picture of the overall evolution of Medium.
https://senderspike.medium.com/help-me-i-am-puzzled-d49c345442ae
As for followers, I suspected there was a bot purge. Judging by your and my numbers, roughly 10% of Medium accounts were already identified as bots and removed (and who knows how many bots are still left). With regard to number of followers, I don't remember the exact count when Medium was free, but IIRC, around 2-3 hundred people started to follow me between April 2017 and January 2018.
I don't remember the second iteration, but, since my articles were not eligible for curation (I deliberately ignore the option nowadays), the trend was similar to current iteration – most people who started to follow me discovered my writing through comments and with most of them I had a conversation at one point or another (and few are longtime friends from before the paywall times, who re-followed me after I “pinged” them through a reply).
