About 12 years ago, one could recommend Hubpages. Since then it has adopted every snide trick available.
Firstly, it doesn't pay.
Don't be fooled by those shills who claim they were 'always' paid. They don't pay.
Secondly, they create a pile of hurdles to insure that your articles are not seen. For example, they 'non-feature' them, and send you a email about 'spammy elements'. No human eye has touched this article.
Thirdly, many of your best items are 'non-featured'.
The only use of Hubpages is Storage. If you're writing an ebook, working an an article for another site, you use Hubpages. You can save it as draft or to prove the date of publication to confront a copyright, post it with a small image.
Hubpages slaps down articles with small images, meaning you posted on July 10,2010 and because your image was small it is now unfeatured. However, you can prove the date of publication, so any site that uses this article can be slapped down.
Take Hubpages for the joke it is.