Ignore the noise. Big players in the space will always draw criticism. There's a huge difference between an organization and an individual. There's value in what you do, and I appreciate your work.
I agree on contributing back to a community and there's many ways to do that. That's not every producer's motivation though. Some do this to get paid and it makes sense to publish behind a paywall to do so.
Follow up question. What are opinions on publishing technical books?
The idea of free journalism sounds great until it's all ad driven and click bait-y. A digital news subscription cost less than $1 daily and it's still a challenge to convince people to commit to one. I'm glad some long form journalists are moving to substack.
It's just the price of making a successful bet. Critics were fine with it when they were confident it would fail. They just can't stand being wrong so they're making an effort to make it true.
I'm not sure if this is a funding problem. US public schools spend almost the same amount per student ~10k. I find it more likely that there's a difference in how resources are allocated in public vs private institutions.
I agree, there's a lot of fluff in business/productivity/self-improvement books. They're repetitive and often refer to the same decade old studies. I've also found that I need to be in the proper state of mind for a message to sink in. Maybe the regurgitation helps but I should reread a good book instead.
And practically any company can build as many billboards as they want. Online ads aren't restricted by physical space. Google just happens to own most web traffic because they're really good at search.