Distribution used to be a good thing about 30 months ago. A lot of things have changed since then, albeit, it has been a gradual change.

Distribution does not ensure that people want to read your article, and it is not an indication that Medium recognized the 'hard work' of anyone. Medium doesn't care less if people work hard or not.

The choice to distribute is based on the guess (and it is guess work) that the broader spectrum of Medium readers might want to read your article. So they will distribute it to a few more people. If those few more people don't read your article, they see that their guess was wrong, and they don't distribute it further.

A view is simply a statement by Medium that the title and blurb of your piece has been placed in front of people. Whether people will read it or not depends on the reader.