Ask HN: Why has Medium become such a trash fire?

A lot of Medium links I end up landing on seem to be really poorly-written and poorly-researched.

The paywall really irritates me and I really wonder how content creators feel.

Is anyone making any money from Medium (aside of Medium themselves)?

Further, a lot of out-of-band commentary seems to focus on how Medium is just a dumping ground of trashy content.

What happened and how do we escape this?