"Privileged" is an insult (in popular culture) and if you claim otherwise you are being disingenuous or you are very badly out of touch. (Or you're saying "well I didn't mean it to be an insult" and yeah sure you're very smart.)
At my last company I worked way more than 40 hours a week during the ~5 years until we sold. However, even when I was often working 10-12 hours a day, plus many hours on weekends, I would take advantage of the flexibility afforded me by being a partner in the business -- mostly by taking random mornings/afternoons/days off to pursue hobbies, etc.
It sounds like you are just buying the same class of preferred stock as series B investors did, so it's not "quasi stock" it's just "stock". What is the distinction you are making?
5 years ago the developer experience working with the Adyen API was significantly worse than Stripe's. Also, the initial in-person EMV implementation, and how it integrated with online payments, was inferior when compared to Stripe in my opinion.
Our rates were also significantly better with Stripe in the US, though we were doing into the billions in annual transactions, which likely has a lot to do with it (we wouldn't have moved all of those billions to Adyen right away).
Which is all to say, much of what you say is true, but it's not like Adyen is a clear winner.
The thing is there's no money in charging writers, really. There's just not enough of them, and they aren't going to pay you enough (certainly not to reach golden egg territory). You must monetize on a per reader basis if you want real revenue.