My favorite of the new justifications is "in 1999, the Internet was niche, but now EVERYONE uses it". So a relatively large audience then with no revenue meant

My favorite of the new justifications is "in 1999, the Internet was niche, but now EVERYONE uses it". So a relatively large audience then with no revenue meant nothing, but today a much larger audience still with no revenue is somehow different, somehow worth a lot more. This sounds to me exactly like the (very old) "we'll make up for it with volume" joke, except people aren't using it as a joke! They believe it!