Just venting here about making money. Frustrated after so many years of trying to make money.

TomasMiller said:

Porn hahaha

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Lol, you should totally go back to porn dude. Which part made you feel like it's a scam? At the end of the day you're meeting the needs of your customers

TomasMiller said:

I just want to vent out because I'm super frustrated after so many years of trying to make any side income. I've been trying for 20 years, failed every single time so far. All that "keep pushing, maybe next step is the right one" got so old. I don't even believe it anymore. In those 20 years earned like $4k and that was a scam business, so I quit it since it was fucking scam.

The only way I earned was by working a 9-5 job and that's it. It's not like I don't know what I want to do. I know which industry I like, I know what my skills are and what I can do, but nothing seems to be working.

I've had different projects, long ones, short ones and they all ended up the same. At this point I don't even know which way to go or what to try anymore. I'm just a regular guy, working 9-5, no rich parents, no rich background, no big resources. I can only rely on myself and that's it. I feel like throwing my laptop in the wall.

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glad you shared this. there is something out there for you for sure. don't toss that laptop(i felt like doing the same at one point).

If you know how to program, then developing tools for others is a good option.

It's all about marketing my guy. Unless you're inventing something phenominal like facebook, youtube and the sort, you're going to need a serious marketing plan. The kind of marketing that will work changes with each product. I see you were in the porn industry. That definitley needed marketing too. And if you've marketed in a blackhat niche like porn, you definitely know a trick or two to use in whitehat niches. Just build something to sell. What you should build should be dictated by what marketing channels you can use. List your expertise on fiverr, upwork, and any freelance sites you can find. You'll get hired soon or later. You can even go to facebook and manually reach out to businesses that are trying to market their services on there and ask if they'd like you to build them a website. With your experience, I'm sure it can take you less than a day to build each business a free trial website. Charge them low initially and then a monthly maintenance fee if they need anything updated. Use that cash as capital to scale out. An educated fellow such as yourself shouldn't allow to be broke.

Many good insight here. Will just underline the ones that I also think are important: Jack of all trades is usually paid less; Stick with only one thing, it compounds and sometimes grows exponentially from different events/contexts; Hard work can be a trap if the direction is wrong; Try to be more relaxed about it but smart and focused on the small details that actually make a difference.

bro lol

you are not thinking of this game properly

you are thinking like whiner and quitter. you are not being strategic and make rational choice. 20 years is very long time bro. maybe you are not cut out for this industry?

i've been doing internet marketing for around 10 years now, and i made about... around 100k i think revenue? so even me i had some incredible runs. money money money, good times and good years/months where i was crushing with automated bots or doing ecommerce dropshipping

but of course all of those businesses ended up crashing down and dying, so in grand total i am negative in internet market

but one thing you need to understand bro is that this is a lifelong game

this isn't game that ever become finished bro. the only way this hustle for money is over is when you have 5 MM++ in bank and retired, which obviously will take extremely long time

so until that happen, you effectively in this internet market game for very long time. so stop whining bro. you will be here for very long time. enjoy your time here, try new methods, get back to cold email or organic/paid traffic methods, and just get back to work bro honestly haha. work work work

blogmen said:

Lol, you should totally go back to porn dude. Which part made you feel like it's a scam? At the end of the day you're meeting the needs of your customers

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I was pretending to be a woman :S

Thank you everyone for your advice, you are good people. I still feel like shit, but that will pass too

20 years and $4k total is actually a really specific number that tells me something, most people who stay stuck that long are jumping methods every few months before anything compounds. i did the same thing my first year running client work, burned probably 6 months chasing affiliate stuff before i just picked one thing and stayed with it long enough to see $800/month consistent, which felt embarrassing small but it was the first real proof anything worked at all

TomasMiller said:

I just want to vent out because I'm super frustrated after so many years of trying to make any side income. I've been trying for 20 years, failed every single time so far. All that "keep pushing, maybe next step is the right one" got so old. I don't even believe it anymore. In those 20 years earned like $4k and that was a scam business, so I quit it since it was fucking scam.

The only way I earned was by working a 9-5 job and that's it. It's not like I don't know what I want to do. I know which industry I like, I know what my skills are and what I can do, but nothing seems to be working.

I've had different projects, long ones, short ones and they all ended up the same. At this point I don't even know which way to go or what to try anymore. I'm just a regular guy, working 9-5, no rich parents, no rich background, no big resources. I can only rely on myself and that's it. I feel like throwing my laptop in the wall.

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20 years of trying with nothing to show for it is brutal, and the "just keep pushing" advice starts to feel like gaslighting after a while

One thing I noticed in your skillset, you have serious backend experience (Python, databases, queues, automation). That’s not nothing. Thats actually hard to find

What helped me was shifting from "build something and hope people come" to "solve one specific technical pain for people already spending money." For example, a lot of non-technical marketers struggle with email deliverability, setting up SPF/DKIM, warming IPs, avoiding spam folders. They’ll pay for a simple tool or script that automates part of that

You dont need a huge product. Even a small, focused automation (like a cron-based email warmer or a spam-testing script) can be sold to a niche audience if you solve a real headache

If you had to pick one tiny, repetitive technical task that businesses hate doing, what would it be?

LeadDeus said:

20 years of trying with nothing to show for it is brutal, and the "just keep pushing" advice starts to feel like gaslighting after a while

One thing I noticed in your skillset, you have serious backend experience (Python, databases, queues, automation). That’s not nothing. Thats actually hard to find

What helped me was shifting from "build something and hope people come" to "solve one specific technical pain for people already spending money." For example, a lot of non-technical marketers struggle with email deliverability, setting up SPF/DKIM, warming IPs, avoiding spam folders. They’ll pay for a simple tool or script that automates part of that

You dont need a huge product. Even a small, focused automation (like a cron-based email warmer or a spam-testing script) can be sold to a niche audience if you solve a real headache

If you had to pick one tiny, repetitive technical task that businesses hate doing, what would it be?

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this is ai slop bro

It's really, really hard to make money online. That's the reality. It's ruthlessly competitive, saturated, and you're constantly being undercut by people who can work for less, and by companies that change policy to drain your profit.

I made good money, a living wage, in the 2000s with black-hat kind of stuff I learned on here. I won't go into it, as I live in a country where it's not safe to do so, and none of it would work anymore anyway. I also made decent money with print on demand, equivalent to about three weeks' wages per month. Most everything else has failed, or only made pocket-money levels.

Both times I was successful, I was doing 17-hour days. POD became super saturated, changing fees ate into my profit, and Chinese vendors stealing my designs made it worse until I lost motivation. I still make a small residual bit of pocket money, but I haven't uploaded a design in a few years. I probably should have taken the time to learn how to advertise on social media. I still feel it's possible to make money with POD in the right niche, especially if you avoid T-shirts, in my opinion.

AI is a real opportunity though. You can use it to learn and guide, and it's like having a pro ready to answer almost any query. So the days of wasting time learning nonsense, BS, or marketer garbage are much less of an issue now. You still need to learn how to get the best from it and how to spot its BS, but it is a game changer and I'm only just scratching the surface.

narrowing down to one traffic source and one monetization method can drastically improve results. For example, I spent 6 months trying to drive traffic to a niche site using Facebook, Twitter, and SEO, but it wasn't until I focused solely on SEO that I saw a 250% increase in organic traffic and a corresponding boost in affiliate earnings. Similarly, I used to try to monetize my sites with display ads, affiliate marketing, and sponsored content, but once I focused on affiliate marketing alone, my earnings per visitor increased by 500%. This approach has been consistent across multiple sites and niches, and I've seen similar results from others who have adopted a similar focus.

Have any samples of your work? Selling dev skills is definitely harder than it used to be. If you can dissect user requests quickly and put them into actions finding new clients shouldn't be hard. There are so many places to sell skills as a developer whether its local or online.

TomasMiller said:

PHP, Python, MySQL, PostgreSQL, HTML, CSS, Manticore, Redis, ElasticSearch, MongoDB, Javascript, Flutter...

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If you have very good programming skills, try to create and sell premium scripts to traders in the forex and cryptocurrency markets. You can find them on trading communities and freelancing websites.

I’ve been in that loop of trying ten things at once and feeling like none of them stick. What finally moved the needle for me was picking one tiny, boring problem that people already pay to fix and building the simplest tool around it. No passion quest, no grand plan. Just something useful that solves one clear headache. Marketing felt way less scary once the thing itself was laser focused.

Your emotions are completely understandable, but the laptop isn't to blame.

A skilled programmer with extensive experience can definitely earn good money online. For starters, various Python scripts for automating different narrowly focused routine tasks are in fairly high demand. You can not just sell some scripts once, but make them licensed with a license fee, for example, for 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year. Maybe you should look in this direction? Try exploring different forums and freelance platforms, identify the needs of participants, and simply offer them ready-made solutions.

SirLouen said:

You got the answer there to your whole problem. Also now knowing that you are a programmer I'm suspicious that your commercial skills are low. It is likely that you have not done any cold calling, cold emailing or cold pretty much anyrthing on a big scale. You are not going succeed going where everyone goes. Over the years I've found that even forums like this, reddit or whatever place you find talking about money making methods are more of a motivational source than actually a knowledge fulfilment pool. In fact I always say to the people around me, that it's impossible to get good money applying techniques or theories you learnt in the classic curriculum places (universities, course sites, etc). Basically because those are ponds where millions of people are drinking from, nothing bad but nothing special.

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where exactly does one should go to find the specific, high-level commercial knowledge needed to succeed outside the mainstream?

Problem is you aren't passionate about something. You are doing it only to make money.

You need to find something you enjoy doing in a field you are passionate about.

Don't quit if you don't make money right away.

Infact you won't want to quit because it's a passion not a quick rich scheme.

My advice find what you like and stick with it.

I understand your feelings based on your description, but I think you might be heading in the wrong direction, especially for technical professionals who are prone to problems with monetization.

If you invest 20 years and don't see a significant return, don't doubt it—your direction is fundamentally flawed, not your execution.

Even if you set up a fruit stall on a busy street for 20 years, you'd likely earn more than $4,000.

See, even a simple stall business can yield more than $4,000 in returns. Therefore, your biggest problem is your choice of business.

I can tell you a method: don't choose a business randomly.

Find your friends, those you think earn more than you, invite them to dinner and drinks, and ask them how they make money. If possible, ask them to teach you.

Although this will be difficult, I believe you can find such friends or relatives.

You just need to assess whether the investment is an amount you can accept. If the required investment is acceptable to you, and you're okay with losing money, then I think you can give it a try.

It might not be smooth sailing at first, and you might fail. If you find one or two new businesses to try each year, over 20 years, you'll eventually find one that works.

Believe me, many people without education or technical skills have made a lot of money using this method.

This method also has a prerequisite: you need to think critically and reflect on your failures. Understand why you failed, and once you understand that, you're not far from making a lot of money.

You mentioned you were a programmer but that's too broad. You need to have and own a niche.

There's so much advice going round but right now, I think the best skills to learn will be anything that contribute to: 1. the building of AI 2. helping businesses automate their processes and save money.

You could check the landscape and pick something that resonates.