>Assuming they are not doing it for revenue, where their income depends on huge readership, why are they so concerned with how many readers they are getting?
Are you including indirect revenue in your assumption? There's lots of hopeful incentives that don't immedialy lead to money:
- you get a reputation and get professional gigs or invitations or whatnot. Fame, in a word.
- You get a reputation and that makes it easier to validate your next pitch for some dream idea you have. For better or worse, saying "a lot of people like this" is very effective pitch material.
- you want to meet other like minded people and organically network. These can lead to future opportunities you would have never considered.
- You have some larger societal mission, and that requires society. If you have some altruistic goal of say, teaching everyone to code (to pick a cliche idea), then you need people to participate to realize your goal. Something like Khan Academy still needs to advertise itself.
Your view only really applies to people who want to do Art for themselves. But we are still a social species, we have a natural urge to share our creations, for profit or not.
Are you including indirect revenue in your assumption? There's lots of hopeful incentives that don't immedialy lead to money:
- you get a reputation and get professional gigs or invitations or whatnot. Fame, in a word.
- You get a reputation and that makes it easier to validate your next pitch for some dream idea you have. For better or worse, saying "a lot of people like this" is very effective pitch material.
- you want to meet other like minded people and organically network. These can lead to future opportunities you would have never considered.
- You have some larger societal mission, and that requires society. If you have some altruistic goal of say, teaching everyone to code (to pick a cliche idea), then you need people to participate to realize your goal. Something like Khan Academy still needs to advertise itself.
Your view only really applies to people who want to do Art for themselves. But we are still a social species, we have a natural urge to share our creations, for profit or not.