I think - based on what I now see in the 'For you feed' - that they have maybe decided 'We have enough stuff on the platform now, built up over years. Some of it is no longer relevant (e.g. politics, film reviews...), but much of it is. So we can cut off the supply of new articles, and readers joining the platform will still find plenty in our library to justify their $5. We can pay what we like to the writers of that old stuff, because they are used to getting zilch for pieces after a week. Even pennies will seem like a bonus. And in fact, a lot of them will get pissed off and leave the MPP, so we don't have to pay them anything, but if they don't delete their stories (which they probably won't bother doing), we can keep milking them to attract new members.'

That is, I suspect, their cynical response to the argument 'But if you don't pay good writers, your stream of decent content will dry up, and you'll just have 'What I had for breakfast' hobbyist bloggers.'

The answer is 'Fine - we'll just peddle what we've already got, and also skim our take off the new members from the 77 countries trying their luck for a few months. Keep that racket going for a while, then sell the platform to Substack, Musk, Bezos or anyone else who fancies a useless little toy, before we completely undermine our brand image.'

Sound plausible?