I agree that content quality and revenue source are related in this way. There are bunch of analogies online, that I think help fill out this picture. Youtube

I agree that content quality and revenue source are related in this way. There are bunch of analogies online, that I think help fill out this picture. Youtube “monetisation” spawned a bunch of clickbait-driven spam. Patreon produced good quality content, acting on the same platform, at the same time. This is somewhere between a subscriber and supporter model. A lot like some newspapers. Almost a natural experiment. In terms of operational scale, patreon’s “creators” are kind of similar to journalists. It takes similar sums to support the work, and they’re on similar timescales. This makes me think a similar model might work for journalism, though maybe not for newspapers. Podcasting is another possibly useful comparison. Very little clickbait (earbait?) ever crosses my radar. Podcasts are usually ad supported, but there’s still no way to SEO or clickbait your way to a win. To succeeds a podcast needs subscriptions, usually free. Even @ free, the need to attract a dedicated subscriber base encourages the same sort of focus on the same audience. Slow & steady growth. Win more subscribers than you lose… This example is messier, but I think it shows that the rules are rules of thumb. Basically, the path to success needs to depend on quality for quality to be likely. Subscribers are generally quality sensitive. I dunno how to formulate a principle exactly, but it feels like there is something here somewhere.