Funny, I had the same experience at Mic as well. In their early days, I was invited to contribute based on some distant social connection to a founder. Many years later I felt inspired to write something again and was told that they would only accept content if I wrote on their schedule and, IIRC, on topics of their choosing. I guess many of these user-generated content platforms go through similar growing pains on the Road To Monetization…and a lot of them are more fun to interact with in their “grow at all costs” phases