This is interesting. On reading the reference to 'select topics you're interested in', my first thought (having recently gone through the same process on Substack, and still remembering the less than stellar outcome of my initial interests configuration here on Medium), my first thought was:

'Actually, it would be great to see a list of sample articles for each topic, to give you an idea of what they will actually serve up if you pick 'science', or 'technology' or 'writing' (???).'

Messier, lengthier, but richer and more effective. I would seriously consider offering this as an option:

- Choose interests by topic category (you can refine this later by browsing articles), OR

- Choose interests directly from sample articles.

Ideally, that latter process would be dynamic, refining the options for sample article 2 to show you, based on your reaction to 1.

Development priority resource for Medium right now? Almost certainly not, let's face it. There are other, more pressing issues...

Nice to have for the future? I would say it's worth revisiting, and it's interesting to know it was under consideration.