We can't conclude that rewards aren't the problem, but we can at least conclude that absolute value of rewards does not seem to be the problem. ie. Simply increasing author rewards or having a higher price will not fix our user retention problem.

There is something (or some set of things) which is causing us to basically lose 30% of authors every month, relying on new authors or returning authors to replenish numbers. What that/those problems are, are not clearly identified here.