When Friends of Medium was launched, I was one of the first 500 people to upgrade and even got the tote bag as a perk.

I didn't join fast for the bag, nor for the hope of more earnings. And it wasn't even the extra features because I have no social media, so I don't use the friend links.

I joined only to say thank you to Medium and all the writers here for being one of the last corners of the Internet where human experiences and raw creativity are being protected.

As a tech person, I'm scared of how little of that we will have in the future, so I feel honoured to be able to contribute to keep human creativity alive in this little corner of the web. :)