Gosh, I think you’ve missed what’s good about the new system - and that is that there are human beings reading these stories, and these humans are already editors of publications at medium, which means they are already selecting what content is good enough to fit their publications. It’s called quality control. As a publisher, and a former freelance journalist, that was the model that promoted quality reading. Granted - the barrier to entry was high, and indeed editors all had their own biases. But their favorites were chosen because of their quality.