I wouldn’t write off affiliate marketing either, even though it’s a perpendicular idea to paid memberships. However, in many markets and niches you cannot sell subscriptions, but affiliate marketing works very well there. For example, reviews of technology, various curated collections, and so on. I think the core team still has something to do and they will not seriously go in this direction. we don’t expect a system for managing affiliate links or anything like that exists in the wordpress ecosystem.
However, just as a thought experiment, imagine that you could create curated collections in Ghost. Whether to do it in the form of post cards or create special collections based on some kind of special tags, let’s discuss. At least the first step shouldn’t be difficult.