The making money on the internet delusion

Did you ever think that you can easily make money on the internet? Well think again or let me tell you here. First I did not really know how to call it, since I planned to do an article on a specific kind of platform that supports content creators like Patreon or platforms that allow monetization like Youtube, but then I figured it is more like the whole of the internet, since the alternatives to those mainstream monetization services are usually even worse, that is why I chose to call it "The making money on the internet delusion", since I think it is the totality of the internet that has this issue, at least for content creators.

What started this article is all those people asking me why I don't make money or don't even try to make money, since they think that there are all those successful business people making so much money on the internet. It is really hard for me to explain to those people that it is all a delusion for the most part and that there is no money to be made on the internet, at least no significant amounts and at least not for the majority of people. Sure people are presented with those big social media stars or whatever, but they are not show the dark side and the dark side is, that those "successful" people are only the 1% or maybe 2% and I put successful in quotes since even if you manage to get into those top one or two percent, you are still not one of the super rich and famous, the super rich and famous are more like the zero point something percent.

People usually reply then with things like "Oh you just have to try harder" or "You are doing it wrong" or "You are just not good enough", but that is also completely delusional. If you look at the statistics it is somewhere between 95-100% of content creators that make less than minimum wage, depending on the platform and type of content they produce and 95% is already very optimistic, in reality it is more like 98-99% of people that fail and make less than minimum wage. So according to the worldview of normie sheeples 98% of artists are not good enough to be allowed to make minimum wage, or in other words, 98% of artists should not be allowed to survive, since you cannot really make less than the minimum you need to survive in this system at least not much less and maintain a civilized life at the same time.

That is why I call it a delusion, the statistics already prove it, without having to go into detail of why things are like they are. It would simply be insane to attempt to make a living as an artist on the internet or even artist in general just looking at the statistics. However that does not stop many people from attempting to do so and that is basically the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result or attempting something that is proven to not work and expecting it to work. It is similar to gambling, the maths prove that statistically you will lose definitively in the long run, but there is a slight chance that you win, it is similar with being an artist or content creator, statistically it is proven that you will fail almost all the time, but there is a slight chance you will make it.

My theory is that there is something basically wrong with our society or how is it possible that we basically have a two class society that is upside down. What do I mean with that? Well you have two classes of people in our society, workers and artists. Workers do basic maintenance tasks that keep our society going, those tasks usually require little intelligence and skill, sometimes also low effort. Artists are the culture creators that don't do maintenance, but create things that drive our society forward and improve the quality of life. Before we get into a debate here that artists have no purpose in society, let me tell you, what kind of life would you have, if there were no artists in society? All you could do in such a society without culture is like eat, work, sleep, reproduce and repeat. Without artists there would be no shows on television, no music you could listen to, no paintings you could look at, no games you could play and so on.

What is the problem now? Well the problem is, that artists basically should have a higher value in society, but they are treated worse than even the worst of workers, at least somewhere around 98% of artists. You really have to imagine how ridiculous this is, imagine you are like the top 2% of content creators on the internet in the world and manage to break the barrier of making more than minimum wage, then you go around the block to your local McBurger stand or whatever low job there is and brag about how much money you make and that worker will tell you that he as well makes that much money or even more. Then if you are capable of even a tiny amount of self reflection you should ask yourself, if it was really worth the struggle, to become the best of the best in the world, just to be equal with the lowest of the low in regular human society.

The low class worker is even superior in many ways to a content creator that has managed to survive, the low class worker can just go to his work and do his work without having to think much or use brainpower to constantly invent new ways to make money and he does not have to fear that his career will suddenly be over, he can just go to another McBurger store and work there, while the internet content creator constantly has to fear about his position as the competition is harsh and the platform he probably is on can ban him any time without reason destroying his whole business at once.

You have to think about it, the regular worker has a close to 100% chance that he will get paid at least minimum wage, while the internet content creator has a close to 100% chance that he will not get paid minimum wage. It is almost the total opposite. If that sounds already unfair, we have not gotten to the probably worst part yet and that is the publicity. If the regular worker fails at his job and gets fired, he usually can get a new job as there are countless of similar jobs, while the job of each content creator is kind of unique and has to be invented first and the regular worker only may lose some of his reputation in a small circle of his friends and family, but only if he really fails and cannot get a new job or gets a bad one or whatever, while the internet content creator will lose his reputation in front of the entire world, for everyone to see, saved digitally for everyone to "enjoy" to eternity. Sure there is the chance to become famous worldwide, but the trend clearly goes to becoming infamous, even the most famous and successful people are not save from that, they just need to say one wrong word or do one wrong thing and their fame will vanish at an instant.

If one is attempting to become a creator on the internet and the fact of his almost certain financial ruin is not turning him off, then the fact of facing the almost certain disgrace in front of the whole world saved for eternity should turn him off. Well it should turn people of if they are even halfway sane in their brain, but most people of course are not and they continue to try to do so. The question now is, why did I chose to become a content creator even though that I'm considering myself sane, well the thing is, I did not do it for the money, because it is my passion, because that is the main advantage of becoming an artist or content/culture creator, it gives you self fulfillment, a thing the worker usually does not get, since he usually does a thing he hates just to make money, because he needs the money, sure there may be exceptions, but in general it is true. The other advantage the artist has over the worker is, that he creates long term value while the worker is paid and then his work will no longer generate value for him, while the artists value may grow over time. Sadly for many famous artist it took so long for their value to grow, that they only became famous long after their death, but hey if you are already gambling with your life, you might as well gamble on your afterlife.

Well I think it should have become clear now why that making money on the internet thing is a delusion, luckily or I should better say sadly, there is an anomaly, since even though artist usually earn less than the lowest of regular workers in society, that a small number of artists from the already small number of artists who are able to survive suddenly become so popular that they make so much money, that they don't know what to do with all the money. Society itself justifies this with saying that those artists are so exceptionally good, that they earn their gorillions of money or whatever they make, but looking at it rationally there is almost no way to justify why one artists gets almost nothing, while another artists gets almost everything, even though they are kind of similar. Sure one might be better, but not a million times better, more like 20% better or maybe even 50% better, but that in no way justifies why one makes a million times more money, since there is no way in the physical universe to be a million times better than another human to justify that amount of earning that much more.

I also sometimes get very jealous when I see other content creators making a lot of money, doing basically what I do and not much better and many times even much much worse, yet they still make millions sometimes. Now I see that relation for what it is, it is a relation of duper and duped that follow the duper, it is kind of a symbiosis. Previously I claimed there is no way to be like a million times better than another human to justify earning a million times or whatever more in money, well I now have to admit that there is a way and that way is in fantasy and ironically this is also what being an artist is about. Those super famous people manage to create the illusion in people that they are somehow better than everyone else to deserve all their fame and money, the whole money thing in society is just a game of illusion, there is hardly any relation to reality. You have to consider the money system was invented to manage limited physical goods, that is where it is good at, but on the internet we are dealing with unlimited imaginary goods and that is where money is really bad at and I think this is one of the root causes why monetization on the internet is so flawed.

Previously I claimed that the artist is higher than the average worker, well that is true and false at the same time, depending on the individual case. According to the vedic scriptures artists are of the lowest caste, since they are just to entertain the workers so they can keep up their work to produce what society needs. So they are basically clowns or gladiators at the mercy of the working population who produce real work, they are rewarded when they are entertaining and punished if not, but the people who hold the real value maintain the power, that probably also explains why artists are paid so bad, because they have to basically beg those for money who produce the real value. Of course sometimes those workers who produce and have real value, don't know about their power and give it all to some idiot clown in the internet thinking he somehow creates something that is valuable, while in reality he is just a clown being too stupid to do productive work.

However what I see as an artist is someone who creates culture and spiritual work that enlightens humanity, which is a whole different thing and those artists usually do not get paid or earn much, since there is nobody who can even understand their value. If you want to make money on the other hand, you have to prostitute yourself to the lower class, be their bitch and do what they want, since they hold the power (the money) to make you dance. A true artist however does what he wants and makes the others dance, in case of a musician quite literally, since only a true artist can create anything of value, while the regular worker can just reproduce, but never create and even if, he is usually not allowed so on his job, he has to do as instructed.

So you have to decide as a creator, if you want to prefer to make money and be everyones bitch or follow your passion and create something great, but usually stay poor. Also regardless of all this deeply philosophical stuff, I think the internet should not be monetized at all, since the system of money/capitalism only works on scarcity and real goods, but the internet is based on abundance and imaginary goods, therefore the capitalistic system cannot work on the internet, or at least not work well, regardless on how humans behave, the error is in the system and no matter what you do will fix the issue as long as you keep the system.