> Advertising works there because of the numbers. People will quickly consume enough bite sized content to drive traditional numbers.

To be more specific, advertising works there because of the feed algorithms. The platforms gather data about user interests and use that to tune what they choose to show the users, favoring things the algorithms suggest will get more "engagement". In turn, they sell ads on those favored items. On top of that, they charge both users and advertisers a premium to be featured on the favored topics.

Take away the algorithms that determine what content and ads to feature, and you get back to the basics of blogging websites. You get happier users, but no advertising money.

Medium broke things (by making people login) precisely because they wanted to charge money, because they did not want to use advertising (and AFAIK they still don't).