Lee said 500+ (note the +).

Sean Cody and Corbin Fisher definitely can and do pay on the upper end, but not all models get the kinds of numbers you hear bandied about.

However, I think there are many different revenue models that can work, depending on the kind of site you're doing. I can definitely see Lee's viewpoint, thought I prefer to believe that keeping exclusive content lends additional value to a website that is lost if that content is licensed to other sites.

At the same time, if there is a constant flow of new, high quality content, you might well find that retention doesn't suffer if some of the content is licensed to other sites.

Corbin Fisher and Sean Cody have a model that works for them, but it's by no means the only model that works.