What actually is going on when this happens to you?

A nominator, who has limited stories they can boost, has gone out on a limb to recommend your story. When they pick your story they are telling Medium, "Hey, this story is the most important story I read today and you should show it to a lot more people."

So we take them at their word, mostly, and give the story a boost.

What this system allows for is that you, as an author, don't need to have an audience to get read here. You don't need to be a marketer. You don't need to game our algorithms. Instead, you can write your best and know that there are real humans scouring Medium trying to find the best of the best and make sure it gets read.

There are a million other platforms that will reward you for being a growth hacker and audience builder. Medium is going to be different.

Do nominators need to get paid? Probably not. But we're getting paid so it seems fair to me that other people do too.

Is this a valuable service to have humans constantly looking to read your writing? Yes. The nominators are a boon to anyone who wants to write authentically and from their heart. Without them, you'd be back to writing for the machines.