I spent 3ish years making these kinds of websites (specifically those click bait-y “Can you name these Canadian snack foods??” quiz sites). They generate _a lot_ more revenue. Like more than double.

Digital publishing’s main business model is paying as little as possible for 1 click and monetizing that click as much as possible on the other end. The sales “funnel” isn’t a funnel here, its just two steps “1. Show link to article . 2. Show ads.”

Now if you’re an organic heavy site like NFL.com, you get plenty of free clicks just by reposting articles to social media. Its more important to keep your brand strong with a couple of small, highly paid ad units.

But if you’re just an average publisher, you gotta literally pay for attention. It turns into a game of spending $1.00 for an ad on Facebook/Tabola/Outbrain/Snap/etc and trying to make $1.30 when they land on the page.

Long term bet IMO is still high quality organic content makes more profit, but you can still make a lot with 3-4 engineers and average-ish content.