To be clear, subscriptions are a great business model.
But, putting your best/most shareable content behind a paywall crushes your top of funnel.
Will some succeed doing this? Yes, 100%. Especially if your content is inflammatory/controversial (check out the 10 on substack)
If you look at things from a purely financial perspective, free top of funnel + any number of other monetization methods will result in more revenue for 99% of people.