[scarecrowbob]

A lot of my paid media consumption comes from podcasts which create enough free content to keep me engaged but which offer enough extra content that I want to pay for that content.

At the scale of "small but functionally profitable podcasts" it seems to be working, so it's not like that model can't work out of hand.

I am not sure it will work for print publishing, but it seems to be working for the patreon-funded folks.