I understand your frustration, I've had referrals clawed back as well.

I think the "everyone is a writer" thing is a bit of a fallacy. Just from my anecdotal perspective, I've seen many commenters who have zero content. There are also tons of people who have a couple of posts, but aren't really regular writers, and prefer to read.

I'm at 130 referrals right now. It takes a lot of work and I promote them on several channels. But I'm leaning heavily into them as a strategy for my income. Who knows right? Online writing is so chaotic and there's always change. Just gotta learn to roll with the punches I guess.

Cheers.