I agree completely. I was actually going to add that 3rd option... Intense focus on unpredictable sporadic events. But I don't see how someone might survive in between.
Discussion
The problem is getting the number over that basic line (3 btc, or about $70,000 in the example at the start). 30,000 people x 10,000 sats would be better than 1 person x 300,000,000 over the long term because but it takes longer to try to reach 30,000 people than to reach one. Selling 30,000 people on an idea vs. selling one on it.
The numbers are out there, they are not unplausible. The Thirty Thousand or The One could solve the problem by lunchtime today if they decided it was the thing they wanted to do. And with ⚡lightning, the motivation-decision-friction cycle is just a minute and a few clicks.
If 30,000 people have decided they like your reporting, it's unlikely all 30,000 of them will unsusbscribe at the same time, so you have solved the basic funding problem for the activity itself in a way that is probably sustainable and in which no one person has power over what you report on or how (no one can just decide to pull the plug becuase they don't like it).
Maybe there are some kinds of reporting that would need more money relatively per person, war zones, say, or big trip X, or if you want to start doing team stuff or documentaries or whatever it is, but basically that is a good real number per reporter doing some journalism thing.
From a reader's perspective, what do we have, how do we get there?
1) Tips (I like that individual comment, article, photo, video)
2) subscriptions (I like this journalist's work generally, or believe in press and democracy, and want to do ongoing support)
3) donations (same motivations as subscriptions but just want to do one-time, not ongoing).
Then it's just maths. Number of readers x each reader's contribution x time. In the middle, there are articles or photos or video reports that energise people more or less. There is also a problem with the emotional reactions different stories cause in readers for differen reasons. Maybe the story, because it is sad or horrible in some existential way, does not lend itself to the kind of emotions that cause readers to want to subscribe. Maybe it even causes rejection. Maybe a story riles readers because it is contrary to their polarised tribal political opinions. Etc, etc.