Is there any way to have this conversation that isn't based on the presumption that we've made a big mistake, that I don't respect writers, and that Medium is failing?

Medium _was_failing in 2022 when I took over. I've shared that over and over. We were losing subscribers, the subscribers who were still here were telling us we were filled with clickbait trash, and we were losing a lot of money each month.

Now we pay out more to authors and make money ourselves. This is business 101, but I'll say it anyway. Making money is required for us not to fail. Every indication we have is that current subscribers are happier with their feeds and overall subscriber numbers are up. We were at ~685k when I took over and losing more each month. Now we are above a million.

I'd be happy to engage, but the presumption of our idiocy even in the face of all other evidence makes it hard to even know what to respond to.