I know of one guy (and it’s entirely possible others here do to) who was posting an absolutely prolific amount on a fairly decent site, which I won’t mention, but just think Youtube. Although it wasn’t youtube.
When I say prolific, I mean he was basically posting up HD versions of a nights tv every day. He’s english, so it was uk broadcast stuff. He also posts up versions of recently released movies which he seemed to get from various sources. He takes enormous pride in being the first person on that site to post film x or programme y.
He has a pretty big following who shower him with praise every time he uploads something and he would lash out at anyone who would request something he’d already uploaded or who criticised the quality of his upload for example, and of course his followers would lambast this person too. He’d block anyone who displeased him. After some digging I found out he was disabled, seemingly housebound and quite depressive.
Then he changed his status effectively making his videos private, available to people who he chose, and of course that came at a price. His suggested donation was a minimum of $10 per month via paypal.
I’d say it’s a very profitable enterprise for him now.