I guess we all have our own approaches for how to choose what we read on Medium and I'm glad you have found a strategy that works for you. I'm afraid your approach wouldn't work for me (sorry - autistic wielder of truth here). I would feel too trapped in a bubble of reciprocity. I prefer to subscribe to the people whose writing I admire without any thought of whether they reciprocate. Great writers are often too busy writing to do much reading. And that is fine by me. If I spent my time focusing on only those who read my work, gosh, but I'd miss out on discovering so many great writers here on Medium. I do, of course, always check out those who are kind enough to comment on my work, but sometimes I don't find anything they have written that really speaks to me and I move on. I wish you all the best with your system, but it really isn't for me. A🙏