My payouts have significantly increased from paltry to 3-5x paltry. As far as my stats go, as Medium promised. I have also read big gripes, forwarded to me as I don't read the big earners--I have never even heard of them, that their earnings have been slashed by 50-90% by the new metrics. How to make sense of these disparate results? My best guess is that the metrics are redistributing the pool because I am sure Medium is not paying out so much more than it used to, and that the new metrics favor writers with a community of other writers that read them, as I suspect that the pure reader doesn't highlight or leave comments as often as other writers do.