Like others who commented here, I had the feeling you were in my brain when you wrote this. Obviously to a certain degree writers have always been in competition with each other (Koontz and King fighting over the same reader base, for example), but new developments here could take it to a new level…if these really are the new developments. I’m not convinced yet that two months of bonuses means this is Medium’s new path forward; I wonder if they even know what their new path forward is.

The only advice I can give (and it’s not worth much) is keep doing whatever you were already doing. We can only hope that those who try to game the new system will ultimately reap the reward that such lack of commitment, quality, and camaraderie deserve.