This is a timely and important observation, Saul. Not only is it feast or famine for a post, the current approach seems to be so heavily biased to new material that terrific posts slow to gain traction quickly become buried. In the early days of Medium, an author would submit a post to collection curators who were expected to be arbiters of quality on behalf of their audiences. One effect of the abrupt shift from curation to algorithm is that — with far fewer curators — audiences are much less likely to discover valuable posts that did not quickly go viral.

Ev’s response to your post stresses that they are intent on fostering the work of serial authors who have attracted a critical mass of followers poised to read their newest effort. That’s an entirely reasonable practice, but — absent discovery strategies — it risks not recognizing an especially poignant or insightful gem from a less productive (or reclusive) author. Moreover, the current navigation and discovery schemes seem to overlook the enormous potential value of past posts.

I was a big fan of Medium’s curated collections. Not only would I be alerted to a terrific post on a topic of interest, I’d be introduced to complimentary posts of which I’d been unaware. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for an enormous disparity to emerge in the quality of work by curators. Among the fatal flaws in the approach were, 1) letting anyone create and manage a collection (many of whom soon shied from the work), and 2) letting authors salvo-submit to multiple collections.

I hope that Medium will revive curated collections to complement their algorithms. To do so effectively will require that select curators commit to the diligence required and be supported by a process for author submissions and feedback.