Thanks for the time to write your thoughts down. Lots of insights to digest. I think I'll leave the paywall thing alone.

I've said good and bad things about Medium. I'm not seeing any sign that such comments change the algorithms.

From my perspective, the algorithms favorite a few writers, which--directly or indirectly---diminish other writers.

If there is favoritism on Mastodon, I'm not seeing it. But posts get buried after a couple of hours. Most posts seem not to get much attention.

I had more traction in my first year. But that was the time when a Medium subscription would give you access to The Atlantic and the New York Post. I can see many readers leaving after these media outlets left. And then there were the popular pubs that lost their subsidy and decided not to work for free.

I see only a marginal correlation between publishing independently, publishing on my own pub, and publishing on a third -party pub. My last Zone article did not bomb (by my previous history), but it did not shake any rafters.

I have 9800 comments under my belt in 4.5 years. This is an average 6 per day. This has not helped my Medium cause. Often I get more claps from my comments than my articles.

I see no rhyme or reason as to what works on Medium and what doesn't work. Many other writers are in the same boat.