Exactly.
Theoretically, and ideally too, Musing appeals to a long form content audience. Those willing to put in the time to craft solid answers more than likely also accept having to wait.
That said... it’s only 3 weeks anymore and then there will be a plethora of options to create accounts within usually 24 hours.
People now want instant things
And people will have always less patience if we feed their wants. When I was 12 I wanted a HiFi setup and my parents told me to work for it. 12 Months later when I finally had saved the amount needed for the model I wanted... when we went to buy it my parents paid for it all. And the money saved went into my savings. :)
Medium has a lot of low quality content, obviously. SEO bottom feeders are everywhere. But Medium built its reputation on “shop window” content created mostly by social media “gurus” and bloggers they knew or could see had invested in profile building already.
A friend of mine signed up same day as I did and I got in 5 weeks, with 7k followers on Twitter and hundreds of replies every day. He got in after 8 months because only 200 followers. He got in when they quietly opened it up for everyone.