I agree. My first story is almost a year old and it has under 1K reads, and so when I see self-acclaimed “new authors” upset about not having any reads, I always have a little nosey at their stories and it’s kind of annoying to see them have more reads than me.
I fully believe that you have to be the change you want to see. And that’s why I love checking out the new user stories category. I know it’s not a shelf like everyone wants, but I’ve found some pretty decent stories there anyway.