First of all, Gillian, congratulations on reaching such an incredible milestone. In all your (very justified) disappointment, I hope that you still allow yourself to feel happy and proud that YOU were able to make such a milestone happen. Yes, the algorithm plays a lot into it, but you still — despite the abysmal views that all of us are getting — managed to keep writing your heart out here and drawing in new fans. That's incredible, and well deserved.

I also wanted to say, however, that even though I'm small-fish here on Medium, I can relate to a lot of what you say. Back in 2019, I earned enough on this platform to reimburse myself for the annual membership fee, in under 2 months. Even with just sporadic writing, I sometimes made hundreds of dollars in a month. The platform genuinely used to reward quality stories, regardless of how much quantity the authors were putting out. Now, frankly, I have no idea WTF the algorithm is doing — or what the people at the top want it to do — because so many talented writers have become utterly disgusted with it, and I don't blame them. For me, it's frustrating too, because I've never been able to spend so much time writing for Medium as I have been able to lately, and yet it very much feels that I missed the golden opportunity while I was stuck in a thankless job. I also dream of making it as a writer, but I'm not sure what my options are outside of this platform. It's time to find them...

Wishing you the very best in all your endeavors, here and elsewhere. Thank you for sharing your stories and running Fearless.