Nitpick about 9.3 Short Circuit Evaluation: both things evaluate differently if you have empty strings. The if-else clause treats empty strings as valid while the or operator will treat them equivalent with None.
I use the version from the github page. They are updated much faster. So when I realized something broke there is usually already a fixed version up on github.
Delete your cookies for medium. Or even better, don't allow the website to set any and you should be able to read most content there. Otherwise a private session could also help?