“the person or persons actually making the posts can still have a public persona and thereby profit by the posts that they are creating, by running a website, ”
I understand that argument, now please identify them. I will ask how you know...
The most obvious one is PamphletAnon, since he recorded himself on a livestream logged in and posting on the QAnon 8chan account. He also admitted on another livestream that he has access to modify QAnon posts. So he has outed himself as one of the people behind the scam, and he certainly profits off it, since he has a monetized youtube account based on “Q” and seems to have quit his day job to do this full time.