I joined Minds a few days ago, and while I agree that the monetization is not as rich as STEEMit, I did find the interface much easier to use. In just a few hours, I was able to get a good amount of feedback and two wires with practically the same content I have on STEEMit. I was trying to test how the whole categories and visibility thing works, and in that sense, the UI for Minds is much better.
That being said, I have still not understood how to create exclusive content, which seems similar to the Medium Partner Program. Minds is probably closer to Medium, in that it seems to have free content and paid content, though even after an hour of looking and the monetization activated, I could still not find out how to create exclusive content on Minds. Have you been able to figure it out?
Oh, and it looks like Minds is going the way of crypto. They announced in December that they will be creating their own coin for the system, moving from points to a model that is more like STEEM. From my discussions with people that use both platforms, it looks like some of the fundamental flaws in the STEEM model are doomed to be repeated in Minds. Let's hope not, because I like it.
If you figure out how exclusive content works, please let me know. I am super interested in understanding.