The lower earnings might result from Medium gaining more writers than readers. The same money is spread among more people. But there is more to that.

With the exception of one text, which appeared on the top of the Medium Daily Digest (MDD) a long time ago, my writing on Medium did not earn me any meaningful money.

From the above-mentioned experience, I concluded that the simplest way of making real money is to be listed in the MDD. In the Medium rules, there are provisions prohibiting writers from promoting their articles. It implies that Ev Willimas reserves the right to reward some writers with earnings by listing them in the MDD. Even if an algorithm selects those articles, Ev decides what the algorithm should do. It could be that some complaining authors fell off the list of writers that Ev supports.

Those of us who do not make the MDD list we earn from accidental readers or followers. With fewer readers and more writers, the earnings are going down. Noticeably, Medium markets itself as a forum for writers, not for readers. Even if all writers read a lot, without paying readers, the average writers' income can be only as much as the Medium membership fee. With a few earning real money, most of us get pennies.