I have contacts in the blog sphere and am starting to be involved myself in the Canadian Miles and Points community, and for blogs that are a fraction (say, 0.5%) of Matthew's traffic, engagement (comments and shares), and social media presence, these blogs alone are profitable enough to be decent alternate career paths, especially for the smaller ones if they can sustain their niche services and have a loyal following, I am aware of nice profits being fairly split between five people most of the time

Consulting services, credit card affiliate links, ExpertFlyer affiliate links for the more technical blogs?? They're the cash cows, they pay a loooooot