Maybe one upshot of names being less prominent is that it makes it more likely to stumble upon new writers.

I mean, if you see this in your feed:

• Story A by Mr. Superfamous
• Story B by John Nobody

I guess most readers will click on story A. But if all they see now is

• Story A
• Story B

They’ll click on the story that genuinely seems more interesting to them.

Maybe Medium wants to reduce the rich-get-richer effect, where big-name writers are disproportionally read for the simple fact that they’re already famous.

This might be in line with the fact that the new Medium profiles hide follower counts.