I understand your thinking. I've been a slow burner but am starting to see success. Saying that every article that does well actually causes some anxiety. Usually you get people upset by something and at the moment, I've turned comments off a piece that gave an accurate and factual account of events, before imparting my opinion, which was not well received. Although saying that, about half agree.

But I spent too much time batting off complaints and it's made me question my desire to keep up with all comments and respond. It's taken time away from writing, and I'm not reading as much as I'd like. Comments are now off, and the problem has gone away for now, but this will happen more as I grow.

I love Medium and want to make it part of my writing income - part of my career - but I still feel it takes too much time (which wouldn't be a problem if I was earning thousands, but I'm not). Part of that is my fault for keeping up with comments and trying to read widely. But then most of the time, it's the comments and exchange of thoughts that makes it so enjoyable!