I can see a couple different ways that it could happen. Funders might have trouble judging actual progress in the absence of academic peer-reviewed publications and citations. Especially as more academics join the AI risk field and produce more papers and citations, funders might be tempted to think that they should re-direct resources towards academia (in part for subconscious status reasons). MIRI may have to switch to more academic norms in order to compete, which would then rub off on LW. (This seems to already be happening to some extent.) Or LW moves towards a more academic culture for internal status-economics reasons, and MIRI leaders may not have much control over that. (In that world, maybe LWers will eventually look down upon MIRI for not being sufficiently academic.)
I can see a couple different ways that it could happen. Funders might have trouble judging actual progress in the absence of academic peer-reviewed publications and citations. Especially as more academics join the AI risk field and produce more papers and citations, funders might be tempted to think that they should re-direct resources towards academia (in part for subconscious status reasons). MIRI may have to switch to more academic norms in order to compete, which would then rub off on LW. (This seems to already be happening to some extent.) Or LW moves towards a more academic culture for internal status-economics reasons, and MIRI leaders may not have much control over that. (In that world, maybe LWers will eventually look down upon MIRI for not being sufficiently academic.)