You’re responding to a caricature you’ve constructed, not to the post I made.

In this case, it’s not freeloading (l)users who left The Escapist in response to its new direction, but its own employees. And their immediate next action was to start their own publication with their own talent, but without the higher‐ups. That suggests that they believe their approach of producing quality content was financially sustainable. Time will tell if that’s true.