I too was a 3-free-stories member at first, it was a really good strategy to get people hooked up into reading more.

As Medium grows bigger I think it should only give more for free, or maybe give more to the writers (or both)... Like a 5-free-stories kind of thing or less restrictions for the authors like the one you had, it's not costing Medium anything that your article gets more external exposure, it's the other way around.

Let's hope it gets better in a near future