We can guess that money is not Steve's primary motivation — indeed, Kirsch apparently donated substantial money to do repurposed-drug studies. Still, his Substack profile says he has "thousands" of paying subscribers at a price of $5 per month (or $50 per year, or $150 for "Founding Member" status). Meanwhile, his articles on Trial Site News were put behind a paywall in August, soon after he was popularized in the early months of the year.

So, thousands of people love his message enough to pay for it, while people like Gift of Fire get, what, several dozen people clicking "clap" a few times?

Unfortunately I think we live in a world of cheerleaders. Mainstream news outlets earn a lot of money, and "alternative facts" promoters earn a lot of money, but neither of these have a Scout Mindset. There are some scouts who earn a lot of money, but I suspect the market is small enough that only a few, such as Scott Alexander, can make a living from it. And Scott — like most scouts — doesn't usually bother with debunking. Not sure why. At least we have you, I guess.