I agree with you that early adopters that wrote a lot of self help and listicles became famous. Our favorite writer Jessica Wildfire did this and morphed into doom porn last year.

I experienced the same thing around 2005 in the digital stock photography world. Early adopters made tons of money and as the word spread how easy the money was, the floodgates opened and it was diminishing returns for a never ending cycle of more and more content. Same thing here on Medium. It's a race to the bottom. Those that can crank out content will win.

I notice when I do write or comment, it's mostly fellow writers that respond and not random strangers. More writers than readers now for sure.