Not at all, the content has always been the core business - without the content, there wouldn't be a market for the merchandise. Merchandise supported revenue

Not at all, the content has always been the core business - without the content, there wouldn't be a market for the merchandise. Merchandise supported revenue isn't a new business model, I mean, that's how George Lucas made the majority of his money, merchandising from the Star Wars sagas. Homestar Runner's business model is a version of the one used in classic cinema, the difference being they made the initial price point $0 - instead of the cost of a movie ticket, so that everyone could enjoy their content and they've helped to reduce the barrier to entry for enjoyment of that content. When you consider marketing and distribution costs are one of the main costs associated with any film project (for example, Disney used to take a 50% cut of Pixar's films) Homestar Runner's costs in this arena have been essentially zero, given they've gotten by on word of mouth advertising. And it's worked for them, they've even had other people borrow ideas to create new online video projects that have gone on to be big successes too. The Askaninja Ninja was inspired by Strongbad's Emails.