That digital media has democratized publishing and writing is one of the biggest myths out there. It's just replaced one gatekeeper with another -- the tech industry. On Medium, the gatekeepers are the nominators, the internal curation team and the algorithm. Even your own website is not really your own website. You rent it. And you need to invest time and money for it to show up in SERPs, which is now being muddied by AI. Plus, there's the Sisyphean task of cultivating an email list/online audience. Traditional publishers, for all their faults, bear most of that burden. I think the biggest issue with trad publishing is writers' unreasonable expectations of it. My sister, a novelist with a trad publisher, has gained access to other opportunities thanks to her publisher: speaking opps, panels, signings, school appearances, etc. It hasn't made her rich, but the publisher has helped her writing career along. Digital media does create plenty of new opportunities, but it's not a publishing panacea. It comes with its own problems. Trad publishing has its faults, but in my opinion, still has a place.