I suspect some of the people who are guilty of doing this are mis-attributing their success to gumption, hard work, or "gaming the algorithm" (never mind that nobody except people in Medium know what the algorithm is) aren't completely aware of why they're successful.

I'm also guessing (this is a wild hypothesis) is that Medium is seeing an influx on "wannabe writer-entrepreneurs", maybe because the pandemic's hit incomes and they're grasping at straws. These new users aren't loyal readers, they're actually just trying to deconstruct what the leaders are doing "right" so that they can earn some extra income on Medium. The result is the leading names get more views, reinforcing their beliefs in their approach, attracting more new followers, and so on.