Loads of companies make great money selling ads. Sure, most don't make billions in profits, but even apps like Snapchat are able to do billions in annual revenues every year selling ads. And many companies are able to make tens or hundreds of millions selling ads.
Also I was just using ads as example of how digital real estate can be monetised. I'm not a Substack user so I might be mistaken, but I believe most of their revenue comes from their subscription model. The point I was making was just that if you create something that millions of people use whether or not you're aggressively monetising it today, there is still some theoretical value that you can assign to those eyeballs and that engagement.
