Exactly. As I put in a very long reply to a comment by Ariel Meadow Stallings, 'unboosted articles are essentially worthless monetarily, though not creatively'.

Hence the fact that we are focusing so much more on the boost programme now, because it is all that stands between 10 cents and maybe a dollar or two.

The boost multiplier never made sense - the boost is in itself the chance to earn more through reads and engagements, because you will get maybe 10 times more views.

If (biiiiiig IF) they thought this through properly, the only reason to apply an exponential factor is to create a massive gulf between the two categories: boosted or not, and essentially mark them as 'zero value' and 'some value'.

Why do they want to do that? Or how do they plan to react now they've realised that's what they unwittingly (diplomatic term) did?