Well, Ms. Tessa, in my book you’ve earned your rants. Most people haven’t earned an opinion, let alone a rant. That said, I’ve started thinking about Medium like a library. There are shelves full of books in here, but not many writers. Nonetheless, reading work that editors and publishers used to reject is interesting and instructive.

For example, in the last 18 months, there is a group of writers that post at least one, often three articles a day, all repeating the same core message. Over and over again. Judging by their followers and claps, some 10,000 people are reading the same thing over and over again. Soon enough, their followers were repeating, verbatim, what they’d been reading in comments on other writers’ articles. If this is what people call “infection” it sure seems to fit.

On the other hand, some writers in here are seriously fine thinkers. It is these writers that most concern me. Clearly, our old book publishing system had been cutting out some of our country’s finest thinkers. As messy as this on-line medium is, it has broken walls that should have been knocked down decades ago.

From time to time, I think a good sassy, straight forward rant from an experienced writer is in order. If folks don’t push back a little, novices get so full of themselves, they can’t see anyone else. As you say, real writers read as much as they write.