I strongly disagree. There is no money in chess: a handfull top players are rich, the top 20 have a nice living standard, behind that level there is amazing poverty like in no other sport. It needs only small money in chess to get a GM for private lessons, in any other sport this would be an illusion (or can you imagine a top 100 WTA tennis player to book for lessons?). I know an IM from Austria who still keeps working for a local insurance company as he makes with this lousy job more money then with winning prizes in otb tourneys.
Same with chess sites. The market is absolutely overcrowded with very little money in it, many sites are for sale (
chesshere.com) or has already disappeared through the years. Chesscube once had a 1,7 million $ financing by a south african venture fund and when the fund discovered that they will never get a single cent back, chesscube started with premium memberships and fired nearly all the stuff.
Chess.com is profitable (financed by the owner Erik on his own) but that's IMHO the only one out there.
Playchess.com uses the playing site to sell their engines, that's synergy. ICC has run out of money, chesshere is out of money, chesscube is out of money...the list is endless. Chess24 is as far as I know, financed gy some GMs - they soon will discover what everybody knows after some years: to run a chess site is one of the worst ideas.