You say it as if "draining the reward pool" by posting content is something the blogger isn't supposed to do. The reward pool exists to reward bloggers who post, including posts like these comments.

As far as how long it takes to write even a short post, it takes around 30 minutes. First you have to find an interesting article, then you have to read and understand it, then you have to write. It can take 20 minutes just to do those steps.

Then you have to provide commentary based on your understanding of the article. Some of the topics I provide commentary on are health related, or research results, which can involve reading academic literature or additional research beyond the article. Then of course there is time spent editing, responding to comments in the post, etc.

Honestly it probably takes more than 30 minutes for each post if I include responding to comments like I'm doing with yours.

And of course I know writing a really long deep article can take days. I've done it hundreds of times. At the same time if what you say is true and I'm capped at $20-30 then do you really think I can spend 12 hours or more on a single long article for $30? You're not being realistic.

I'm sure there are people somewhere in the world who can afford to spend 12 hours on a long article for $30 but if you have to choose between writing 12 articles for 1 hour work each or writing 1 article, which would you choose? Same amount of hours spent on your part either way so you'll adapt to the market.

When the payouts are high, I do tend to write much longer more elaborate articles. When the payouts are low then I have to compete with the bloggers who write shorter articles. That is just the market and not a choice. Either way it does not change the fact that if I don't put in those hours I won't be able to write many short or one long article.