An economic explanation makes sense. I wonder if a monetizable ecosystem could exists with longer form content in multiple forms, ie. multimedia, a word that has almost disappeared.

There is Patreon, Substack, Youtube and others that does work, the problem lies in the curation and personalisation that seems to have gone out the window replaced by algos and simple designs with bland and uninspired designs and concepts.

I wish the app moguls would just give us a "Turn off Personalization" option and let me explore freely. I turn off all history tracking on YouTube, but it doesn't matter. Whether it's on or off, you can't explore a topic deeply. You have 1-2 videos on the subject, then you have completely random unrelated click-bait garbage.

Even music apps are disappointing. Sometimes they do well, but most of the time it seems not. I play a radio station for Mat Corby, which is a pretty chill downtempo vibe, and the app throws in stuff from my library that has no relation--like Kanye West's Jesus Walks. Literally did that multiple times. Those vibes could not be more different.

Maybe cataloging music is a difficult problem, but there was a time (maybe 2010?) when YouTube would efficiently suggest music that had a vibe to what I was listening to, and it helped me find many artists I listed to now.

Edit: And a time when Apple's Genius was not a bad house party DJ

And even if the vast majority of them don't in fact make material money, many of them have a hope of doing so and act accordingly.