A lot of this is due to the aftermath of the MWC debacle. However, Medium makes most of its money from writers who read and readers who aspire to write. These articles are popular, so people will keep writing them. Feedium is a publication dedicated to writing about Medium. If all these articles were confined to meta pubs like Feedium, those who enjoy reading them could subscribe to Feedium posts and those who don't like them can mute Feedium. But, that won't happen. The MWC demonstrated that Medium makes the most money from writers. It was a subscription drive specifically to attract writers. Writers read, especially things that promise to tell them the secret to making money writing.