Ever since the author paywalled some of his useful posts, I stopped following him. I have read his ML book and I know he used to be a professor and is now working in the industry, and he’s quite famous in the field. That’s why I don’t understand why such a figure would even need the extra income generated by Substack’s paywall.
Nothing wrong with that. But it's strange that such a person (who undoubtedly makes $$$) wants to make some more $×10^-n (n ≥1) by paywalling his articles.
He worked at a public university until 2021, you can look up his salary as it's public information: $118,472.99 [0], not as much as your average mid-level software engineer.
Now he works at a startup [1], but not as a c-level, so he's likely making average startup software engineer salary (certainly more than a public university professor, but not exactly FIRE money).
It's amazing how much people begrudge anyone wanting to make some money for the tremendous effort the put in to helping people better understand an important subject. Anyone working in software can easily afford to support his work if they find it valuable.
Generally, anyone "famous" for teaching a technical topic is typically doing it as a charity even if people are paying for their content.
People paid for hundred upon hundreds of dollars just to access a course, but not willing to give for an article that provided the same stuff to you, for your own time and pace, while charging only a tiny fraction of the course?
Beats me...
