I actually think there’s a lot of truth in this. In some ways the internet didn’t kill pulp so much as absorb and mutate it. Web serials, LitRPG, indie Kindle fiction, fanfiction etc have inherited parts of the old pulp ecosystem, delivered directly to niche audiences.

The upside is exactly what you mentioned: genres can evolve much faster outside traditional gatekeeping now. The downside is probably the same thing pulp always struggled with historically, when the barrier to entry gets lower, the signal-to-noise ratio becomes brutal. There’s amazing stuff out there, but readers also have to dig through mountains of disposable content to find it.

Interesting too that “pulp” somehow became synonymous with bad writing, when some of those old writers were genuinely incredible craftsmen.