You are making a lot of assumptions, which unfortunately leads to conclusions that don't hold much water. First of all, 8 years ago, when I joined, there wasn't a Medium Partner Program. Everyone wrote for free. So nobody was waiting on anything, nobody missed out on any money, we just wrote when and what we felt like. I did spend another 5 years offering my content for free, because it was my choice to do so, and I regret nothing. Follower-count wasn't the goal, nor was money. I used to have blogs, and as a software engineer, I also built plenty. They're a waste of time. For online presence, a brochure site is enough. The rest you do where the audience is, like Medium or LinkedIn.

There seems to still be a lot of confusion around compensation on Medium. If people come here to make money, they've come to the wrong place - and I say that as a monthly 4-digit club member. The only reason I joined the MPP after so many years on Medium, was to experiment and see whether my writing was worth people's hard-earned cash, but I can already tell you that writing on Medium is not going to generate a monthly salary (not to Irish standards anyway), so really, I'm still not doing it for the money, but rather to feed the experiment and see how far it can go. See more below:

https://medium.com/illumination/six-months-into-the-partner-program-is-it-worth-it-46e142fd5ee7

I think raising the limit would also raise the quality. Most writers who complain about the 100 follower limit are also the ones who give up a few months after because they realise it's real effort to write and even more so to write stuff that people actually enjoy reading. The patient ones will know the value the platform gives them, and once they move behind the paywall, will see - just like I did - starting directly in the 3-digit club in their first MPP month, which is far more encouraging than the less than $5 many make here after 100 followers who never actually read anything.

I could go on and on, but I feel like I've already written everything as articles so feel free to check out some of the ones from my writing and writing tips list (not my main niche): https://medium.com/@attilavago/list/writing-writing-tips-f83ef5e79de5