Cynical take: it's in the interest of publishers (not the author of this post, but internet sites in general) to get as many people out there as possible as "writers", because that allows them to pay them $.02 to $.05 per word. Race to the bottom. Same thing happened to photography with the rise of the iPhone and cheap prosumer digital cameras. Nobody wants to pay photographers (or other visual artists), they just offer "exposure" or go on UnSplash and find a free image.