I am skeptical of the statistics presented here without context. I’d venture to bet there are orders of magnitude more “writers” earning money today than even ten years ago (Anecdotally, I can’t read 90% of Medium because these writers believe I should pay them to read their work, I won’t, that is their and my choice alone). The writers at the top of the income distribution probably make orders of magnitude more money than they were a decade ago, while the vast majority are making a pittance. The stereotype of the broke writer waiting tables to make end’s meet isn’t new, even outside of this new reality where anyone can pick up a keyboard, write an article and have thousands of people read it. As is the norm, competition within any market will generally drive down the price of the goods.