In this case, I think we should learn from the direct marketing guys (wait, here me out.)
The problems mentioned several times in this thread can all be addressed by their ways, although it requires work, and not treating this "getting paid to write" thing as merely a hobby.
- how not to rely on a central authority for your work
- how to solve the problem of getting paid
- how not to get banned by the publishing site and also the payment processor for saying things they might deem controversial
- and even how to keep your subscribers and also prevent your paid content from leaking to the LLMs
This is how people like Ben Settle (considered as one of the greatest email marketers), Dan Kennedy (Ben looks up to him) and Matt Furey (Ben and Dan both revere him) earned their way into wealth.
* they paywall their premium newsletters. but you can't access them via a website by logging in with a username/password, or a forgotten password flow. No. It's delivered to your home as printed booklets via courier [1].
* Ben has a rule: if you subscribe to his paid newsletter ($97/mo) and then unsub, you won't even be able to join back [2].
* Dan Kennedy has no email. You'll have to fax him to get his attention.
* Ben often talks about the perils of having your entire business at the mercy of platforms and payment processors. His solution is to have multiple merchant accounts [3].
* By keeping their premium content away from the internet, they're able to keep off piracy, and that same playbook is now protecting their content from LLM bots. And by charging big numbers ($97/mo vs $5/mo) they're able to deinsentivise the subscribers from uploading them to the internet. They have proud long-time subscribers who are loyal to them and don't want to harm their business.
One of the main discussion points in this thread is the importance of owning your list. And nobody takes that job seriously than these direct marketers. To them, it's all about controlling as many different parts of the machinery as they could.
And finally, if they're doing offline business, what do they keep their websites for? To build the list of course. And then sell their paid stuff to that list via email.
Yes, it seems like a chicken and egg problem, but then I believe you only need a few fans to keep the ball rolling (kelly 1000 true fans etc).
[1] - https://emailplayers.com/
[2] - https://bensettle.com/blog/why-i-banned-you/
[3] - https://bensettle.com/blog/merchant-account-kicks-my-app/
- matt furey's $97/mo digital newsletter https://knockoutmarketing.com/zen-mastery-newsletter/