I would never rely on Medium for income and like you am used to the up and down nature of it. Some clarity from the top would be nice though, as to why reads are still being paid at a pittance. If scammers bled the well dry just tell us. The fact we can't see read times anymore and clearly are being recompensed in a scattershot way is not helping the feeling of complete lack of transparency and erosion of any vague trust we may have had.