Unfortunately in the age of free information, getting paid is difficult. The business model for online content is simple: Your content is the hook to get people attached to your sponsors. period.
As someone who essentially makes a living from that, I'd like to think that that is not the only end game,
Once you have a following and people like you and your stuff, some form of paid content or products can ultimately work.
Yeah, NerdCore's analysis seems just a bit overly-cynical ...
The value from this on-line content varies quite a bit depending on the content, of course, but also the personality and style ... anything from detailed technical lectures to "infotainment"... and potentially I think plenty of people will pay for such content if it appeals to the enough, either because it is educational (giving the viewer knowledge and skills they can use to become more powerful), or because it is simply entertaining, or anywhere in between. Of course, it has to offer something substantial above the vast sea of free content...
What kinds of substantial value can be offered?
1) Thoroughness with focus. For example, there are plenty of tutorials and introductory videos and blogs about various specific topics (say... conditioning weak signals for input to ADCs), but it is maddeningly difficult to find comprehensive coverage of such topics... the vast array of available op amps, noise issues in the circuitry, biasing, shielding, dealing with over-voltage conditions, options for changing gain levels dynamically and how to think about choosing between them, etc etc etc. Traditionally, writing a book would be the way to communicate this kind of in-depth material, but evolving hyperlinked multimedia with community is superior....
2) Interactivity. Like Contextual Electronics... part of the appeal is having an xpert available with detailed knowledge of the exact circuitry under study is quite valuable and worth paying for. Similarly, interaction with peers provides a "shared experience" component that appeals to our basic social natures and requires an organizational context.
3) Personality. We like watching certain people who we find entertaining. The information content is rather small in Dave's mailbag segments and many (but not all) teardowns (the motorola phone teardown was quite scant on any actual information, e.g.)... there are nuggets here and there but it is an investment to dig them out. But on those occasions where Dave is clearly enjoying the subject matter and the process of making the video, he is very fun to watch and listen to... it is a huge part of the eevblog appeal. People pay to watch entertainment if they enjoy it enough...
On this subject, I find it interesting that Chris is quite engaging as a personality in the Amp Hour podcasts and is fun to listen to, but is unbelievably stiff and painful to watch when talking to a camera... I wonder why?
4) Putting it all together. I found Zach Braff's kickstarter for getting his movie "Wish I Was Here" to be fascinating. Besides the warm fuzzies of helping a celebrity you like work on a new movie, what the backers (will) get is a series of hopefully detailed videos documenting the process of the film's creation, start to finish. Presented through Braff's affable personality, the learning opportunity and sense of "being there" is fantastic... and he raised three million dollars mostly for access to that video content.
I personally would pay a fair bit for a subscridption to a start-to-finish detailed look at design, development, and production of an electronics product, especially if Dave does it. It is a lot more niche than Braff's project and it could be tricky to market it to the target audience, but it would be really cool. If Dave could team up with an editor to take the "live" video of Dave working and talking about the issues he is grappling with and distilling it down tomsomething watchable, that could be awesome (Dave is a fine editor but he should be talking and doing electronic stuff rather than editing video IMO). My favorite eevblog videos are those times when he used to document part of the design and production process for his boards.... just watching him rant about (for example) the process of selecting and sourcing power components for the project would be vastly entertaining and with enough actual details, educational and useful.
Anyway, interesting stuff! I will probably signup for Chris's thing, depending on my life situation etc, as my skill level is just about right for the audience he seems to be targeting.