But that also means that great stories which happened to be ignored for whatever reason (servers were flaky that day, a holiday, a major news event eclipsed them) will never get a chance to shine.

Suppose you wrote a piece about BLM and social protest just on the day COVID got real. It might have been buried, but it sure would be relevant recently.

On the other hand, what everybody loved a year ago could be dullsville today because of societal changes. Tesla and Apple fly high today; in five years they could be also-rans (I doubt that, but they could).

Let Medium figure out what is best to show.