Yeah, I had forgotten about the bonus period. (I joined in Sept 2020 and started writing regularly that December and joined Illumination as an editor where there was a lot of discussion in our Slack about all this and what followed)

This is a good history and perspective you are providing to all. I hope people don't not click in when they see the 15 minute read time

I think you skipped curation, which was the alleged gold ticket, with people celebrating every curation ( I never got one), then realizing it often didn't translate to views and monetization), and then morphed to chosen for further distribution, which I only received once for my entry in the space category of the MWC, which story didn't even get honorable mention in the contest. 🤷