The very "needing to get things done" is the appeal - even if the pay is lower (which isn't always the case these days) think of it as investing in your own abilities and skills.
I spent all my days, nights, and weekends out of college working on a doomed startup during the first bubble and I'd still describe it as one of the best experiences of my life. It prepared me for all sorts of experiences since then. I was ideating, researching, designing, building, and even publicly presenting multiple new products for a company that didn't have the staff to specialize in any of those needs.
I've used those skills at companies big and small since then and have worked alongside those who haven't forged their abilities in the pressure-cooker of a startup - I wouldn't change a thing.
As head of SW Engineering for that video company offering the rev split, I just wanted to point out that the Eepybird video linked earlier in the article (Diet Coke and Mentos fountain), actually launched exclusively on Revver and financial reward was one of the big motivations for their decision to release it on Revver instead of Youtube. In fact, they filed numerous DMCA takedowns for all the unauthorized uploads to Youtube. There are numerous other examples of the same occurring with other creators.
While I do agree that financial motivations are usually less compelling than social and ego-driven motivators, there are times in an industry's evolution where they do matter, especially in trying to establish a new professional class. Would Lyft, Sidecar, and UberX drivers exist for fame and glory alone?
Revver was about a lot more than the just the rev-split - we were building an open network that rewarded video creators for their efforts and sought to let them to make a living performing the craft they loved.
I agree. Fame and competition - especially for limited resources, whether that's featured placement on a site, elite status, or a limited pool of other rewards - tend to be much stronger motivators than simple financial rewards.
Not to say that financial rewards alone can't work (unless I'm missing something, that seems to be how eHow farms most of their content), but my last company (Revver) focused primarily on rewarding users financially for creating and sharing video content.
It's not the cleanest example because of some of the related implications of that decision: not including copyrighted content for fear of negating DMCA protection, having large media companies uncomfortable with the reward structure around dispersing content freely, etc. While some content creators really treated the endeavor as a business and looked to maximize profits as much as possible, most were really in it for the fame - and Youtube had the built-in audience we couldn't build (especially without stolen, copyrighted work early on).
I still do think there's a happy medium between the two - with fame / competition being the primary motivators and financial rewards being included as bonuses or perks. At Revver we had that priority order reversed, thinking that financial rewards would be big enough motivators to bring traffic and content.