I'm a relative newbie (having only started in October last year) but was lucky enough to get a viral article in early summer. It's mainly because of this that I've been in the three-digit club for several months now (after an absurd 4 digit month from the Cannabis piece). Anyway, as the quality of your writing proves, success on Medium is often down to luck.

I thought your take was brilliant, and I can't help but feel I've been overly optimistic about Medium, given my naivety and reluctance to "bite the hand that feeds me", so to speak.

However, as you point out, while Tony has stressed he wants to create a more community-focusesd platform, the irony is the recent changes seem to be negatively impacting Medium's community of writers.

There's a stench of elitism about this. As if Medium should no longer be seen as a viable source of income, but rather a springboard for cookie-cutter courses about getting rich, or migrating email lists to Patreon, etc.

It's a real shame, imo.

Something is definitely rotten in Denmark.