I do think Medium is partly to blame here and have encouraged this shameless boost begging in a way. I think in one of their posts about the boost they asked for recommended reads to boost. I read someone say they had recommended an article in a Medium post's comments and it got the boost, which is only going to encourage this sort of thing, which before long will annoy the few boost givers Medium probably employs and then they will probably decide it's time for more shake ups/improvements lol. There also needs to be more transparency about publication editors with boost powers, what are they being paid (if anything, I heard this was in the ideas phase but have never heard confirmation) because the inherent conflict of interest in recommending family members and other favorites is going to get really stinky fast if serious measures aren't in place to mitigate favoritism ruling the boost roost.