Distribution certainly seems weak now as well. Or rather 'even weaker'.

Is this because Medium isn't pushing out stories to our 'circle', or because our 'circle' are less active on the platform because everyone's pissed off? I wonder.

One other negative factor could also be this realisation/assumption that 'our reads of familiar faces don't count', because that could in turn lead to people being less careful about the 30s rule, since their read won't count anyway, but that then brings down the read ratio, affecting not just earnings, but increasingly distribution-.

Medium never seem to give sufficient thought to all the possible ramifications and externalities of their tweaks, nor the psychological consequences of not explaining them, and hence having people act on supposition and rumour.