Yeah, unfortunately read time alone sucks for poets, comic artists, and writers who don't have mass appeal.

And read-time alone also sucks for writers who do writing that is more time intensive, such as serious journalism that involves lengthy research. These writers can't increase their income by cranking out long reads every day because it just takes a lot of time to write such pieces.

So I think read-time alone is a little broken too. It disproportionately rewards listicles, opinion pieces, rants, and other types of writing that can be produced quickly while being fairly lengthy.