Thanks for the feedback, Edward. I agree that we shouldn't let it affect our approach to submissions, but the fact that it is so obviously shoved in our faces clearly means that Medium wants it to. or esle they wouldn't have presented and configured it that way.

When you see a piece boosted, and within three days accumulate literally 50 times the earnings of a similar, equivalent piece, neither written with the aim of claiming a boost, it inevitably makes you think.

Hence my points here: the boost bonus is overdone, and the rejig of the basic stats page to highlight earnings is clearly meant to emphasise that.

I think the whole set-up is divisive and secretive. Precisely the kind of hidden gatekeeper mentality of the days before the Internet freed up the possibility of having one's voice heard on an equal footing.