Tony, I feel differently from you. The minimum guarantee feels liberating to me. With the minimum guarantee, I feel like I can take risks with my fifth (and subsequent) articles in a calendar month. If I feel like writing a 30-minute read mammoth on a drug-fuelled bender I had once as a teenager, I can do so without hurting my income for the rest of the month. This is quite a welcome change from feeling like I have to churn out another listicle or basic how-to article just to bump up my stats for the month.