#mrrealitycheck, the three big lies about making money online.
Much of what they make you believe about “making money in digital” is complete nonsense. And often the ones spouting this garbage are famous people (remember: the personality traits that make you visible and a networking genius are often the opposite of those that make you an excellent professional and analyst):
1) “You can make a lot of money with self-publishing.” False. It was false 5 years ago when the self-publishing scammers were threatening me on Fufflix, and now with ChatGPT it’s even more false because supply has increased. It’s a log-like market: a tiny few take almost everything, and everyone else gets scraps. If you manage to sell 100 copies, you’re already incredibly lucky and a war machine. The median earnings are dismal. A few dollars.
2) “Being an influencer / creator / OnlyFa*s pays well.” False as Judas. Identical dynamics to point 1. A tiny few take almost everything. The majority gets peanuts. Being a creator is a brutal grind for the sheer volume of content you need to produce to satisfy the platforms. And the median OnlyFan*er doesn’t even reach $100 a month — I’m referring to a well-known study released months ago. Not much, considering the internet will never forget your photos.
3) “I wasted money on the guru’s course because you can find the same stuff online for free.” Two problems. Opposite ones. The first is that in this era you pay for the cognitive ordering and filtering of information, not the information itself, so you’re not wasting money on a course. BUT the trouble is you’ve learned garbage. The average marketing / finance / sales guru in Italy teaches nonsense. Things debunked by practice and the literature. In my field, the absurdities of Al Ries, Dan Kennedy, and direct response marketing are famously popular; in finance they make you believe you can beat the market; in sales, that “pushing” the client and using setters and other canine tactics is the solution.
When behavioral psychology proves the exact opposite: quality clients despise hard sells and don’t want to “be sold to.” They want to choose and buy. Quality clients despise “pain point” manipulation. Quality clients sniff out Cialdini tricks and you lose them. If the guristas taught you correct concepts, it would make sense to pay them — that’s not the problem. The problem is the garbage that infects your brain (and, in my experience, you’ll go bankrupt before you deprogram yourself).
