I see their articles all over the place but it seems crazy that they aren't in control of their own publishing platform. I actually thought they were just an of

I see their articles all over the place but it seems crazy that they aren't in control of their own publishing platform. I actually thought they were just an offshoot of Medium to begin with. They do seem to be doing good things but it's still investing in digital publishing in 2019 which seems to me at best risky. If I could afford to lose the money I might give it a shot. I really don't know about crowdfunding in general though. Has anyone actually made a decent return on investment in this way? Any success stories I don't know about?