Lisa, I agree with so much of this. Your tags thing is spot on! A problem is that most writer's main motivation is money, which is why they hoover up the "how to make x in y" articles, which then get prioritised and the circle continues. There is hope though. I got bored trying to write "hits" for big publications and instead now entirely self publish (on my profile and my publication) and my views are, very slowly, building, though I am having to write daily (and the numbers are still very small) You do get to the point where you think "is this worth it?". The only way it's worth it for me is that I write for me (I love the daily expression of short form and my publication is based aorund a 100 day project). Please keep writing though, because, as you say, Medium needs voices which aren't churning out the same stuff.