I don't think it is a missed opportunity, the price is too low to justify the work. Even if most articles don't reach $25 on Medium most freelancers can do better than $25 per 1500 words. I suppose if a writer was in a lull or needed work to build a portfolio they could do this but I still think their time would be better spent building a website or soliciting potential clients.

For me, the worst part of this deal is that if the article DOES go viral you end up with...$25 and 0 followers added, and 0 long term income.