Thanks for sharing this, Misbah. I’m not focused on earnings, but rather, on some fundamental concerns. It's disheartening to witness a CEO and a product manager offering conflicting views on the same issue—it erodes trust and underscores a communication breakdown.

Medium, at its core, is a tech company. Its focus should be on personalization, specificity, unbiased decision-making, and employing technology to sift the quality content from the rest. It’s ironic to hear that large scale engagement isn’t a means to earn traffic when, evidently, the platform directs traffic to selected articles, leaving others in the shadows.

Writers, investing hours into their pieces, are left with no option but to engage and seek comments to gain visibility. It isn’t a question of better writing—many talented writers face the same traffic drought. Engagement becomes the logical answer. Flagging an account for posting 100 comments in an hour makes sense, but penalizing 30 comments in 3 hours is an overreach. AI should be sophisticated enough to distinguish spam from genuine engagement.

These improvements should have preceded the implementation of the new system. From a business standpoint, it's foundational, making such oversights all the more perplexing. It does raise questions about the platform's approach and priorities.