Hi Matthew, thank you for saying out loud what I think many writers on Medium are thinking about too, myself included. I'm a new writer here too (started just a year ago), though I've been writing and editing for decades in academia where the norm is to give/receive extensive peer reviews. I come from a context (academia) where you can expect adequate feedback even from journals that receive tons of submissions. While I understand that many editors of Medium publications are managing their pubs on the side, on top of bigger responsibilities like a day job, I agree with you that even just a non-generic, single-sentence feedback that explains the rejection can mean a lot to the writer.

That's why I tend to be loyal only to a handful of publications, and they're not very big. As often as I'm able (which is not yet very often), I give my articles regularly only to pubs whose editor really connected with me. I tend to "give back" this way, by thinking about how I can regularly contribute to the pub in that niche (and not in other pubs in the same niche). It doesn't matter to me how big or small the pub is, what matters to me are the editors behind it. And someday maybe, when I already have a big enough following, I'd like to bring them over to that pub that generously helped me while I was still starting.

My point being: it's not just publications who are doing us a favor by featuring our stories. We also do them a favor by writing for them, by checking out their content, and making sure that our writing adds value to their pub, too. It's a symbiotic relationship--well, ideally.