Suggest you ignore all the 'advice' from these people. It's not valid.

The bottom line is that you wll make money on articles that the public wants to read, and the public is fickle when it comes to what they want to read on any particular day.

In general, every writer has a few good pieces, a few medicore piecers, and the rest earn s pennies. This will be like this for the rest of your writing life.