Excellent analysis. I was never a heavy-hitter here, but even back in the days when I had hardly 2k followers, I sometimes earned enough on my sporadic stories to cover (or at least nearly cover) my rent. It used to feel like the algorithms genuinely promoted quality, regardless of the size of the writer's audience. Not saying I'm some virtuoso of the written word, but it seemed like the platform valued thoughtful stories that writers had put real time into.

Alas, since 2020, this place has been feeling more and more like a content mill — and while the size of my audience and quality of my writing have generally gone up with time and practice, it makes no sense that I'm making so much less. Add to that the fact that the platform occasionally decides to snuff a viral piece, and it's downright insulting. I wonder why Medium is doing what it's doing.

I don't intend to throw in the towel just yet... but the moment I can find a better platform than whatever Medium's become, I'd like to jump to it.