Here here Linda! 👏👏 I agree wholeheartedly with everything you wrote here. It hurts my heart so many great essay writers are being alienated by the current state of things here. I only arrived here a year and a bit ago, and for a few months it was mostly wonderful, money aside there was so much inspired writing and a real feeling of community that feels all but dead now. Medium will be incredibly dull if all that's left behind are tech, productivity and life hack listicles. They AREN'T listening, not to us. I had the exact same reaction to the messaging put out about what kind of writing they/he envisions here, and I wondered if I was alone tbh (glad I am not!). But yeah, it seems to leave little room for writers just here to write from the complicated messy depths, which has a value that theys eem incapable of recognizing imo. Who t.f. remembers the identikit self help listicles? Not me. I remember the carefully crafted plays on words, the hilarious turns of phrase, the soul baring writing of the brave. I will be sorry to see you go if you do migrate but please keep us updated. I can always go back to my blog, I don't have it in me to learn substack right now. ugh.