I hadn't heard of it until I saw an interview Glenn Greenwald did after he quit The Intercept where he said he was already making some ok money there, as his readership was stronger than he thought might be the case, and they followed him there. I get the impression it's a place where bigger writing names can actually generate some revenue by having a subscription model, but with more opportunity for new names to get a foothold simply due to it being a newer space.
I would think they are paying early adopters an extra bonus, especially prominent ones (Pulitzer) like Greenwald.
One thing he noted was his number of readers went up too though (probably due to appearance on #1 nationwide talk show, that promotes the IDW/Dark Enlightenment Movement/"race realism"/ancient aliens Egypt hypothesis, just before he moved though).
