Great article @stellabelle! I also draw a lot of correlations between Steemit and Medium. I was even a paying member of Medium from that launch until a couple weeks ago.
I have a soft spot for Medium because it goes hand-in-hand well with Twitter which I LOVE. It's decline is depressing.
I started out on Blogger too...so I've run the gamut with you of Ev Williams products. He knows how to create awesome platforms. I think you have a strong point about his lack of monetization skills though, and he would do well to listen.
I think watching the evolution of all these platforms will be interesting indeed.