There needs to be a mechanism where a site can provide its verified identity to allow the user to know exactly who they are.
Not every site will need or want this but the ability should exist.
At the moment EV provides this ability. If EV is not seen as the answer then we need to have something else instead. We could decouple this from HTTPS but identity is also a valid purpose of signed certificates.
Interesting part is EU have decided all these cookie accept banners are a PITA and so users should be allowed to set cookie permissions in "software applications enabling accessing to the internet"
Which was suggested when the original law came to pass in 2012.
The aim of EV certificates is to reduce such risks and highlight to the user the legitimacy of such websites.
HTTPS alone only provides encryption. Google doesn't use EV anywhere but I feel it should on login pages especially given it is a high phishing target.
Some people who publish on Medium (me included) have a commercial arm which is trying to gain recognition from publishing.
Better known examples would be 37Signals and Buffer.
Increasing sales via the commercial arm is the aim and so being rewarded for publishing is not completely necessary. In fact I would consider paying for more premium features. Such as ability to restrict read next to particular publications or even pay for greater reach in other publishers "read next" areas which could then compensate them.
I also use Medium to publish personally with no real need for financial reward. I use Medium because it is easy and I don't get distracted playing with navigation or sidebar or thinking "I could stick Adsense on this and earn $2.00 a month".
iMac 27inch i5 mid-2011. Upgraded to 32GB of RAM. Just added a 1TB SSD drive and boot from this and it is now like a brand new machine. The existing 1TB drive is used for cold storage.