The people who have large followings on the outside never once brought paying supporters with them. It has always been a missed opportunity.

Yep, agree here too.

My idea to get around this blockage is, in my humble opinion, genius on many levels but A) I'm too worried about sharing it and the idea getting stolen B) I don't have the business savvy to get it started C) I don't wanna spend my money knowing the low, low success rate of otherwise great projects here in the past.

Basically a lack of confidence from me - I'd trust you enough if you're mildly curious to hear about it in DMs or something - but point being, that's someone of 7 or 8 years on here lacking confidence that it'll work out. It's much harder to imagine people from a totally outside world coming in with this entirely different and complicated ecosystem, even if you have a large community of loyal followers. I think there's a line in the sand some people just won't cross.

Shifting that line in the sand in our favour is, apparently, extraordinarily difficult to do, but we certainly agree it's not impossible. Just missed opportunity after missed opportunity - including, guilty as charged, my own.