Hi Jenn, I shared my take about the missing faces here for further details:

https://medium.com/new-writers-welcome/why-your-favorite-medium-writers-faces-are-gone-with-faq-1d7d2dbec071

I made 1K which is good. I didn't have a viral hit and I wrote a lot of shorties because my life is pretty busy.

Plus, Tony said he'll raise the bar on Medium. Meaning, your concept of success might not work in the future anymore. Plus, there will be less curation etc. I'll share a summary soon