I don't think the comparison between the NYT and substacks or podcasts is apt, because the NYT is a NEWSpaper. Does it contain opinion columns? Yes, among count

I don't think the comparison between the NYT and substacks or podcasts is apt, because the NYT is a NEWSpaper. Does it contain opinion columns? Yes, among countless other columns. But the fundamental purpose of the NYT is not just opinion. Whereas substacks and podcasts appear to be mostly opinion pieces. You don't often have news broken on them. What substacks and podcasts have shown is that some "thought leaders" can make a massively lucrative living independent from the newspapers, and more than they could make with the newspapers. But none of this applies to writers of news. News writers still need the news organizations, and the subscribers of the newspapers, to support them. The author talks about "writers" in general without making that crucial distinction. Hard news writing is mostly a thankless job. It rarely provides the opportunity to build a "personal brand" like opinion writing does, unless you're Woodward and Bernstein breaking Watergate. Even someone like Glenn Greenwald, who has broken some huge stories like Snowden, makes most of his money from spouting his opinions online rather than from breaking hard news.