Maybe it’s just early days? I remember in early internet times webcomics were one of the few niches where creators were trying to make a living on the internet

Maybe it’s just early days? I remember in early internet times webcomics were one of the few niches where creators were trying to make a living on the internet. At first it was “easy” - ad rates were super inflated in the dot com boom, and people were making rent with “punch the monkey and win” banner ads. Then came the crash and the bottom fell out of the ad market. A lot of creators just went away, but the ones who held on generally monetized via merch. Granted, these were people that were both funny and had graphic design chops, so novelty t-shirts were a natural fit. Presumably the buyer demand was always there, but no one discovered it until they were forced to do the hard thing of flailing for cash. Possibly as the market matures and people test more monetization methods we’ll see more podcast shwag.