Felicia, thanks for you feedback. I personally believe we'll see all kinds of new and interesting things that will actually be beneficial to what you know and love about Medium. We are not abandoning stories. After all, The New Yorker has cartoons. 🙃

The more concrete thing I can offer is this: If you don't like shorter posts, you can avoid those who publish them. One way is to mute. Another is to follow only those you like. BTW, we are testing a new version of the app that is much more follow driven to put you in control of what you read:

https://blog.medium.com/a-new-medium-on-mobile-7ddeed24b231

Let us know what you think.