If I had to guess, I’d say it was a time issue. It’s easy to determine and someone who puts zero effort into the very low bar of formatting requirements will be less likely to put appropriate effort into content requirements either.

You’ll spend more time culling if you look at content as the major criteria and more time getting those articles up to snuff for publication because they were submitted by lazy writers.

Do editors and medium publications even make any money on this platform or is it a labor of love or the hope of building a revenue stream out of it?

I don’t know about you, but if I’m doing something because I love it or because of potential revenue I’m not about to waste my time on someone else’s BS attitudes. Doing so will ultimately make me hate what I love or lessen that potential revenue for me and anyone else involved.