I have heard of people buying subs. Have no idea how that work. But I would say a person who organically got to 50k, 100k subs. If its organic, meaning his or hers content got people watching regularly and building, I have to assume the money is very, very good.
If anyone is like me, they aren't a regular subscriber who is listening to the first minute of TBA, PBT or Tariq and then ending. I may not listen to the entire thing if its 3 hours but definitely get the meat of it. I sometimes stop listening to the callers in the last hour or so of TBAs broadcast.
I knew someone that had 170k subs on Youtube with a merch store and he live streamed on Twitch 3 times a week with 3 uploads per week on YouTube. Was making around 15k a month which is rare. You really have to work your ass off now though to make good money cause ads don't pay as much as they did just 5 years ago on YouTube.