We have other solutions. The only choices are not “trust someone who may not have my interests in mind” and “popularity contests,” we have entire fields of research into web of trust and preference metrics — that is to say, not trusting someone else to make decisions about what I might like but letting me make decisions about who I trust and what I like. We know how they work, we know how to implement them, and we know that they generally do work.

I absolutely do not trust the Medium Editors. I have literally years of experience looking at the front page and seeing what they promote. We clearly have different ideas of what should be put on the front page in front of me. Which is fine — except for the fact that they now seem to want $5 a month to promote writers and subjects that I don’t really have any interest in. I have no expectation that the Medium Editors, given the last several years of observation, will have any interest in reaching out to me to be a contributor and thus get into the lottery for a potential payoff from subscription fees.

I do my level best to tell the system that I have absolutely no interest in “clickbait and nonsense like hacks,” and even given the repeated signaling from me of what I don’t want to see in terms of content, the front page and Medium Editors can’t seem to get that right.

I’m much more trust Publications on Medium to make good decisions about what content is good for their audience than I do Medium Editors to make those decisions absent any sort of expressed methodology. Which is why I suggested what I did.

Even in light of that, I would rather have “popular stories” rewarded monetarily than “what unknown, unclear, absent topic editors believe should be rewarded.” After all, if that’s what people want to pay for — who am I to say they shouldn’t be able to?

I would absolutely support “voting with your wallet.” But that is the utter manifestation of democracy in action, which you just said you don’t trust. I think you’re going to need a more consistent basis of expression.