The subjective reward has gone down though: back in the days of webrings and the visit counter gif cgi, writing some content and then maybe fill in one or two "under construction" placeholders some months later you could easily delude yourself that you were on track to an amazing future. Perhaps not altavista.digital.com amazing, but maybe becoming something like a respected resource in your niche of a niche. Today there are so many lower hanging fruits luring from inside the walled gardens...