I don't think he killed read4read. It was there before as you said and it will stay IMO. It's just that in August it paid much more than usual.

But the real money on Medium (if any) has always been in writing good articles. (good in the sense that they can go viral - currenlty, these are boostable articles)

I wrote a piece on the topic

https://medium.com/all-about-m/hey-tony-wheres-the-money-54ed6e971110

And I'm waiting for the one you will send to All About M :D

PS: I wonder about Medium's bottom line. It's true that Tony mentioned IPO as a long(er) term goal during Medium Day.