[tonystubblebine]

> The only for-profit knowledge services that survive with their soul intact

I agree about the corrupting influence of VC. The following isn't a super popular opinion on HN lately, but this is exactly why I've been a believer in Medium since they launched their subscription service. It's the rare startup where I could see their financial incentives and also think those incentives would be good for me as a reader. They made the knowledge the product and removed the incentive to use the knowledge as a sales pitch for some other product, i.e. content marketing. And they have to constantly push for articles that qualify as subscription worthy. That means focus on quality. I don't think they've tipped over yet, but what I've seen so far is that the more subscribers Medium gets the more they spend to get better and better articles. And as the payouts to authors get better, better authors come on board.