Don't confuse a lifestyle business that people do as a labor of love with a successful full media organization that can afford to pay people salaries and benefits. Not diminishing LWN, but it's not the same as a Dr. Dobb's or GigaOm.

Also, most successful smaller media publishers who are not purely ad-based have diversified into other areas.TidBITS is a smaller operation and can pay some salaries, but they supplement with their fantastic book business too. They diversify and have built what they can sustain