Is medium.com panicking?

Anyone who is consuming articles on medium.com for a while now will have noticed ongoing changes wrt the paywall. It's not entirely clear to me what content is behind it and what not. I tried both reader models - membership and free rider.

In the past medium seemed to have a lot of free content. Now every article I want to read, except for corporate PR stuff, requires me to upgrade (since medium has recognised that I have surpassed my 3 free articles). Yet, when I search for the same article online I usually find it in its original place and can consume it for free (note: of course, some articles come from publishers who also try and attract you behind a paywall on their own site after a number of free reads per month).

This is the inconsistent bit - why would a reader pay on medium if she/he can find the same article somewhere else for free? This is not a discussion about fair payment for writers/ content creators, and also ignores user experience aspects such as convenience. Medium's current monetisation drive doesn't look convincing, it looks panicky. A few months ago the model worked much better - plenty of free articles and about a third (gut feel) was behind the paywall - often I would find myself considering going back to the paid membership model. Now I am just irritated and on the verge of cancelling the newsletter all together. 

This article here explains the medium history and its various attempts at monetizing content as well as offering freelance journalists and writers an income opportunity very well: