bang on analysis. I have had over 30 articles curated in my 6 months on Medium across 20+ different topics. I dont have nearly as much experience and skill at writing as you but from the smaller observation set..my top 5 earners (3 stories at $50 plus currently n others ~30 n growing) are all True Crime pieces that were distributed.

I think the nature of true crime means people just cant sift through or read only bullet points and so avg read times are so much higher than any other genre!