You do not have to be a paying member to be in the Partner Program, and non-members are allowed 3 reads behind the curtain per month. However, the only interactions that rack up points toward reimbursement for locked articles are those from paying members.

For paying members, it is an opportunity to disburse a portion of your membership fee to writers whose work you admire, even if they are not members themselves, so long as the story is locked.

I know Ré Harris is able to see and reply to responses to her locked stories, because she replied to one of my responses. However, I would love to know if she has a different experience of being able to do this depending on the device she is using.

For example, I get emails when someone PMs me on Medium, and I can read what they have to say in the email. But, I cannot see that PM on my Android nor can I reply. I have to wait till I am at a laptop to respond to PMs. A few months ago, I heard this is the case with tablets, too. But I don’t know if that is still true.