Good point. The careening messaging is head spinning. We've gone from "Medium doesn't owe you writer peons a living. How laughable for you to even dream of it even though the top writers here did just that for some time" (most of whom have now left) , to "Hey, we really care! Let's forget about the recent rollercoaster in how we pay for reads that has benefited fewer and fewer of you, and try something new. Say, just spitballing, what if we let you pay us triple? We will let some of that money trickle down, until the wind changes again, but your shiny gold star and special status will distract you!" (or something like that...)