Interesting piece. Thank you.

When I first started on Medium 14 months ago, I was very puzzled at my lack of readership. That doesn't normally happen to me. There was a lot of advice about getting into publications in order to develop traffic. I submitted three times to three different magazines. All three were turned down. Then all three were picked up by Medium for distribution. My traffic remained flat. Occasionally, I received a note from other publications for a request to add my work. I gave it . And... My traffic remained flat. I very slowly, in 13 months, climbed to about 600 followers. I wanted to quit a year in and seriously gave it thought. I decided to renew because there were such fabulous writers on Medium (You were one of the ones I followed). And I'm so glad I renewed.

A few weeks later, last month, I wsa one of the 1000 people who won the $500 as a bonus for being top writers, etc.

In the past 3 weeks, my number of followers have shot up from about 600 to over 1.5K. My earnings multiplied by more than 6000%. All because of a change of algorithm and a change of policy at Medium. I know the same thing has happened to other people - all of whom have been writers with me on other publications on the web for the past decade. I was the one who invited them to join Medium. We've been writers on the web for a long time.

I saw that PSILY is shutting down. I think Medium has switched from focusing on publications to focusing on writers, and I think as strong writers realize that the ball is now in their court, there might be less interest in publications.

As you clearly put a helluve lot work into your publications, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.