This is a very good balanced story with compassion for both sides, encouraging understanding from writers and medium. There is no doubt about it, and I realised it quite some time ago, that personal responsibility needs to be taken regarding earnings on medium. Most people, have to declare their earnings in at least some form (tax, etc) but depending on someone's circumstances, it could also be other forms of reporting earnings, such as housing or health. It's therefore crucially important to stay in control of finances, and have a realistic grasp on earnings, even if it involves scaling back and pausing writing on Medium for a while.

Some people may think that writers earn a lot or aren't declaring income, etc, and although that can certainly happen for most it doesn't and many struggle to earn anything near $100 or above. Trying to explain how medium works to others can be frustrating, as they can see it as 'self-employment', which technically it is - but with a caveat. It's not traditional self-employment, as in a stable income from say owning a hairdressers, etc, it a very unpredicable potential source of self-employment, and isn't a money making machine. Although many top writers have earned a lot of money, it seems those days, at least at present, are in decline.

I think a complete overview of medium is needed. The site is littered with scammers and AI bots, and unauthentic readers and writers. It results in inequality and imbalance of how much genuine writers get paid, while inauthentic writers can earn so much more. I'm happy to earn nothing until the whole system functions properly, in it's intended form. I've never done anything with money as the sole motivator either online or offline. I do hope these problems will be fixed, and I think it's great advice to give writers, that they should look at alternative avenues to a more reliable income such as self-publishing or substack newsletters, rather than over-relying on Medium as a source of income. The end result with be great disappointment, I'm afraid.