I agree about the follower count. There seems to be a consensus that this metric is pretty useless. I'm more interested in who my followers ARE than how many of them I have. The point you make about this rule creating a "follow-for follow" culture is valid.

Having the MPP available to paying members only is a good idea. I wonder what percent of the writers on the platform are non-paying members.

I don't like the idea of curation being a requirement because I've still not had anything curated after a year and 70+ articles.

If all you mean is that stories about Medium wouldn't earn anything, that's an excellent proposition. There are an abundance of articles any newbie to Medium can find without populating the platform with still more of them.

I think 300 monthly views is a steep enough requirement.