I'm with you, Sally. I made a decision not to paywall my new stories until this sorts out. My first such non metered piece is about that, how I decided, and much more. https://medium.com/write-under-the-moon/navigating-towards-acceptance-of-and-coping-with-the-unacceptable-in-the-mediumverse-fe62c96e7061 subtitled "Together with thoughts on time, the dual nature of humans as material and spirit, and reincarnation."

And if they don't rectify the payments, then very possibly I will gladly continue to write free to read content but downgrade my subscription to basic. Writing my first not paywalled piece was a pleasure, as were some of the responses I received, which reinforced that I made the right decision, for me.

Some are yelling at me that my decision sends the wrong message. That's their ridiculous us v them attitude, and I don't give a fuck, two shits, or three rats' assess what they think of me. To some, I say, good riddance.

I've realized that I don't identify as a writer. Nor as a someone who treats writing as a hobby. I realized re reading my not paywalled post, that it's exactly the type of post I enjoy writing and I made the right decision for me. If they do start paying not zero again, I might as well start paywalling again, because why turn down free money, but it reminded me why I'm here, which is not for the money, even though it actually does make a difference to my finances these days. To a freelancer, anyone else may just be a hobbyist, but that's not it for me either. It's neither a job nor a hobby. It's something more intangibly priceless, to put my thoughts and feelings out there, and receive back a response that I provoked thought, or that what I wrote was exactly what someone needed to read that day, and similar. And then there are the friends I've made. Maybe I could replicate that on Substack, but for me, why try. I have it here. And I assume I'll still find plenty to read here if all the freelancers/content creators flee, I don't read that much from them anyway, and besides, nothing I read here is as enriching as a good book, and I've already started focusing on that lately.

As for Medium offering high paying jobs with benefits, doesn't bother me in the slightest. Maybe they'll find competent people

Part of me thinks all this upheaval will ultimately be good, culling Medium of lots of bad energy, get rid of people who are here for the mistaken idea that they can make meaningful money here, and then the scammers and bots will not see the point in being here. It does suck though that the unconscionably poor PR and mixed signals and poor communication is driving away some that I enjoy.