On the first point, yes. LOL. It's why the scheme is so popular. Nominators are paid and they can nominate their own stories. Obviously, the option to boost some absolute gems I see on my travels through Medium and make other people happy would be an added bonus! It's not the best of motives, but it's why so many people have applied.

I don'tbelieve it encourages people to nominate stories that aren't worth it, because if they nominate stories that fail to meet the grade according to the Medium curators, then the nominators will eventually lose their boosting privilege. They have to meet a certain criteria of success to continue.

I'll admit, I came to Medium as an adjunct to my freelance writing job, and work is slow, so I'd like to make more on Medium, and stop chasing dead ends. But the only way to make good money on Medium - as a job because you have to put in some serious time commitment - is to be a boost nominator. I'm putting in a lot of time already.