I agree with your wise statement. You articulated your interesting observations and perspectives well. As a publication owner supporting many writers and readers I received mixed sentiments from contributing writers. Some asserts that their stats significantly improved and most inform they decreased like some stories even get zero views which confuse them. Every change come with a bit of challenge initially. It is natural to have teething problems. For Medium leadership and management team, I believe the situation can be improved by tweaking the rules based on feedback from clients, in this case effected writers. It is impossible to please everyone but finding the middle ground looks possible to me. Education and feedback are also necessary to support this radical change. Thank you for writing this thought provoking and insightful story. I keep an optimistic outlook for a better platform.