She already had a decent following and a channel that was several years old, and I assume that played a large part in her initial content pivot success. I assume most of her original followers would be annoyed and eventually unsubscribed, but honestly, I didn't notice her shift for a while (looks like her last legit business content was about six months ago)

I've seen this repeated all over the internet, but it's far from true. CPM/RPM on adult video is way, way, WAY lower than YouTube or other SFW ad networks.