I thought devtome was a stepping stone and/or to be one element of many.
The problem is 'writers' became more numerous than devs, yet most is garbage in terms of broad utility (I'm not a dev, have written so maybe garbage includes me).
Devcoin started by funding software developers, then devtome was made. Most of those software developers ignored devcoin, as far as I know only develCuy and Emfox came to devcoin from software funding. Most administrators came from writers, because there were far more interested writers.
Devtome was supposed to make money from advertising, which would of payed for other projects, but the advertising revenues turned out to be insignificant. I expected advertisers to pay for many ads on devtome because there was so much content, but I was wrong.
I previously outlined issues with Devtome and pricing. Advertising was never likely to impact that dynamic, successful or otherwise.
But I think we all made errors in assumptions and/or mechanics.