As Paul van Gool mentioned "it all depends on what you call top writers". Without an objective and clear metric for selecting writers, the model will not attract me, neither as a writer nor as a reader. For this business model to work, it probably needs to serve to the taste and preferences of most readers. In this, I see the risk of trivia marginalizing factual and valuable content.

I'm on substack, too, but I don't see how to make money there, unless I package something other than writing into the payed subscription.