s/o asked me why ppl can't make money

[thisheis]

Why there are so many scammers. And there is one brutal reason for this.

Developing skills in a specific industry, building infrastructure, and launching a business is actually the easy part. All of that simply boils down to your own hard work and effort.

The real reason most people still fail to make money is marketing. They have absolutely zero market power. When you're doing the exact same thing as everyone else, nobody is going to notice your service or hire you unless you pour massive amounts of cash into visibility. Without that leverage, you can't advertise effectively, and landing your very first client will feel nearly impossible.

CMV if you're still not blackpilled with this.

 

[Starblazer]

All platforms need money to survive and all of them depend upon ad income. So, they make sure you won't be able to promote anything for free. They actually make it one of the core functions of their algorithm. No wonder a lot of people fail at marketing and struggle to make money.

 

[BuyFromXavier]

True, but it's not just 'marketing'. The brutal part is that the market is oversaturated in almost every decent field. Everyone learned the same skills from the same YouTubers, so now you're competing with 50.000 other guys offering the exact same thing. Skill + execution is table stakes.

 

[stechsolutions]

Why there are so many scammers. And there is one brutal reason for this.

Developing skills in a specific industry, building infrastructure, and launching a business is actually the easy part. All of that simply boils down to your own hard work and effort.

The real reason most people still fail to make money is marketing. They have absolutely zero market power. When you're doing the exact same thing as everyone else, nobody is going to notice your service or hire you unless you pour massive amounts of cash into visibility. Without that leverage, you can't advertise effectively, and landing your very first client will feel nearly impossible.

CMV if you're still not blackpilled with this.

For first client or project, the important guide from me is that you must try social platforms groups and hire a freelancer section for your first client.

Or you can give trial service for first 5 clients in order to build your portfolio.

 

[xmastox]

Marketing matters, but plenty of broke nobodies still win by being early, consistent, or simply better than the average guy offering the same service.

 

[GlamRock]

Why there are so many scammers. And there is one brutal reason for this.

Developing skills in a specific industry, building infrastructure, and launching a business is actually the easy part. All of that simply boils down to your own hard work and effort.

The real reason most people still fail to make money is marketing. They have absolutely zero market power. When you're doing the exact same thing as everyone else, nobody is going to notice your service or hire you unless you pour massive amounts of cash into visibility. Without that leverage, you can't advertise effectively, and landing your very first client will feel nearly impossible.

CMV if you're still not blackpilled with this.

What?

Building a business is the easy part?
Maybe for a course seller or online guru.

But real businesses with a solid foundation...
Do you think a significant amount of time, labour, and money (that took years to save) was "the easy part"???

Secondly,
You don't need to tell people they need massive amounts of cash to get noticed.
Organic Social Media & word of mouth launch businesses everyday without a huge ad budget.
Do you know how many businesses land their first customer just through networking and cold outreach?

You describe business as if its a lottery, just a pure numbers game run by algorithms.
And you completely ignore human connection, trust and local reputation.

At the end of the day, people don't buy something because it has the biggest ad budget. They buy from people they can trust, who can deliver a quality product that gives them value.

Lastly,
Market power is not advertising strength.
In economics, market power means a company's ability to manipulate the price of an item.

 

[GlamRock]

All platforms need money to survive and all of them depend upon ad income. So, they make sure you won't be able to promote anything for free. They actually make it one of the core functions of their algorithm. No wonder a lot of people fail at marketing and struggle to make money.

So are you saying that a platform's need for ad money is the reason people fail?

Yes, platforms want you to spend on ads but they don't actively block you from organic reach and unpaid visibility.

Thousands of businesses grow entirely through free, organic posts.

FB & IG need good, free content to survive because people wont stay if their feed is just ads.

Youre treating this tool that connects billions of people as a closed gate, but it's a big open door if you know how to communicate well.

 

[Stavro]

At the end of the day, people don't buy something because it has the biggest ad budget. They buy from people they can trust, who can deliver a quality product that gives them value.

Work alone doesn't create trust or a perception of quality. The best product in the world can flop with bad marketing, and the most mediocre products often become household names through marketing rather than quality.

 

[GlamRock]

Work alone doesn't create trust or a perception of quality. The best product in the world can flop with bad marketing, and the most mediocre products often become household names through marketing rather than quality.

Are you confusing attention (Brand Awareness) with trust?

My comment is about why people buy (a decision-making process that's rooted in trust and value), not why products flop or scale.

Are you implying that consumers are just mindless targets who buy whatever is aggressively marketed to them, regardless of quality?
Because that underestimates the consumer's power of choice.

Im not challenging marketing power, im promoting long-term buying habits that are built on delivered value.

 

[Stavro]

I think we're approaching this from different angles.

How do you portray 'this is high quality and trustworthy' to someone who has never seen your product? Without strong marketing, you're never even going to get eyes on your product, let alone long-term clients.

 

[Starblazer]

So are you saying that a platform's need for ad money is the reason people fail?

Yes, platforms want you to spend on ads but they don't actively block you from organic reach and unpaid visibility.

Thousands of businesses grow entirely through free, organic posts.

FB & IG need good, free content to survive because people wont stay if their feed is just ads.

Youre treating this tool that connects billions of people as a closed gate, but it's a big open door if you know how to communicate well.

They spend millions for branding too. So, you're supposed to speak exactly like this about them. Most people think that these platforms are doing them a favour while all they do is earn money.

You can check March 2026 social media addiction trial. A Los Angeles superior court jury found Meta and Google liable for intentionally designing addictive social media platforms.

Google does a lot of gate keeping to block small e-commerce sites and low authority sites from ranking in search results. Their algorithm is designed to favour established brands instead of giving everyone a fair chance. Most of these platforms prevent you from competing with others so that you have to resort to ads.

 

[midnight_rambler]

mostly right. marketing is the bottleneck, but the deeper issue is people try to sell to everyone and end up reaching nobody. no market power because no positioning, not just no budget

 

[MiSparrow]

A product or skill is only half the story- if no one sees you, even something great won’t bring much value. I felt this myself when I started testing different niches, even a solid idea just doesn’t move without traffic. Now I focus more on how to actually get things in front of people, and from my experience MGID really showed the difference between something that just looks good and something that actually gets clicks, but even there you can’t do anything without constant testing

 

[MiSparrow]

Work alone doesn't create trust or a perception of quality. The best product in the world can flop with bad marketing, and the most mediocre products often become household names through marketing rather than quality.

But you can’t rely on marketing alone without a solid product in the long run — trust breaks down pretty quickly

 

[GlamRock]

They spend millions for branding too. So, you're supposed to speak exactly like this about them. Most people think that these platforms are doing them a favour while all they do is earn money.

You can check March 2026 social media addiction trial. A Los Angeles superior court jury found Meta and Google liable for intentionally designing addictive social media platforms.

Google does a lot of gate keeping to block small e-commerce sites and low authority sites from ranking in search results. Their algorithm is designed to favour established brands instead of giving everyone a fair chance. Most of these platforms prevent you from competing with others so that you have to resort to ads.

I never implied these platforms do us a favour, and I never will.

Have you seen FB's financials for 2025?
They made $195 Billion in ads
That's $22 Million every hour... on ads

But it's you who keep giving all these ads platforms so much power & credit.

They take Billions from the people for ads,
But they make sure they limit how much the people can benefit from the platforms.

The ads just give you visibility, but conversion + retention is your burden.

The most priceless resource here is human attention.
But now an AI is the ultimate decision-maker on who has a right to it, or if my humanness is real.

I rarely pay for ads because I leverage FB's organic ecosystem as much as I can.
And it works.
When I compare my results to using ads, it feels like the same effort, and that's why I promote organic reach.

 

[WPGads]

I partially agree, but I think it’s not just marketing

I’ve seen people with great products fail because nobody knew they existed. I’ve also seen people with average products make a lot of money because they were great at distribution

That said, marketing alone won’t save a bad offer. You can buy all the traffic you want, but if retention, conversion rate or customer satisfaction are weak, the economics eventually break

The biggest mistake I see is people spending months building and almost zero time learning how to get users. Distribution is definitely underrated

 

[stechsolutions]

Marketing matters, but plenty of broke nobodies still win by being early, consistent, or simply better than the average guy offering the same service.

Yes, of course he needs to be different in terms of services like he must any of the services stuff uniquely. He might offer trial services, get 1 extra service, with some discount, too.

 

[lucky boyy]

A good product or skill alone is not enough, because without traffic and the ability to reach the right audience, it's very difficult to produce tangible results. Through experimentation in many different fields, I've realized that promoting and bringing the product to customers is just as important as building a quality product.

 

[TKV AGENCY]

Starting a business is never easy; you require a solid foundation, operational expertise, and substantial capital investment. Only then can you build a robust business model for simply having a product does not guarantee that people will buy it; everything depends on a well-executed operational process.

 

[stechsolutions]

A good product or skill alone is not enough, because without traffic and the ability to reach the right audience, it's very difficult to produce tangible results. Through experimentation in many different fields, I've realized that promoting and bringing the product to customers is just as important as building a quality product.

actually his question is all about ppl, like when someone spends of ads and marketing, ppl doesn't seem productive which I had answered that it's based on conditions of Targeting right audience.