Although SN has far fewer users than sites like Medium or Reddit or Amazon, you have a much greater potential of some few of those readers actually reading what you write.

And the genius of SN is that if a user reads your post it's incredibly easy for them to zap it and so they often do.

If you don't have much of an audience anywhere else, you should definitely consider writing here.

Additionally, as the OP mentions there are a few factors working in your favor on SN:

I've been writing reviews of old cyberpunk classics and I've made a few dollars. Maybe if I was famous I could start a paid subscription substack and get people to pay me for such reviews but I doubt it.

The real question is why do the sats I earn on SN matter so much to me? Because they do.