How to Make Money Online

How to Make Money Online

In order to understand how to make money online, the first thing you have to understand is what networks are and how they work. Economically, networks tend to create or amplify a topological hierarchy with a distinction between highly connected and sparsely connected nodes.

Poor to Rich

The internet, by its very nature, will never be a universal vehicle for people to find productive and financially rewarding activity. In most ways, the internet is open and democratic, and gives the most power and influence to end users. But in terms of monetization, the internet cannot ever work this way. This is because, to put it bluntly, having an internet is not economically necessary. Yes, it is enriching and entertaining and rewarding, but we can simply look at history to see all the things humanity was able to accomplish without a single universally connected information network.

Put simply, the internet is a non-essential productivity enhancing tool. As it is non-essential, this means that smaller players will never have leverage. If a mechanism is not in the favor of those with prominence or connection, there is no reason to make it flow through the internet. It will not be easily amplified online.

The place where the common person has the most advantage, is within physical space. Being present is something that doesn't scale. And this is why services and trades will always be the area where the individual has the biggest advantage monetarily speaking.

For this reason, money online will always flow from poor to rich, from the least connected to the most connected, from the people who appear to need it, to the ones who appear to not need it. But I do not think this is cause to be cynical, only to adjust your expectations and approach. The internet may not be financially rewarding for the common man, but it is rewarding in real terms. Although money online will only flow from poor to rich, it does provide a unique opportunity for public prominent figures to enrich the lives of many people, often who they never meet.

In this sense, internet activity can be valuable, but should not be seen as a replacement for seeking a more equal and universally prosperous society through physically present means.

Use the internet as an extension and amplifier

The biggest thing that the internet can do for you, is extend your reach and amplify your message. This means that if you aren't finding much traction or success in world where you are physically present, it does not make much sense to try to monetize the internet.

The internet has all sorts of usefulness for learning, education, practice and niche social interests. But until you are finding success in your normal non-internet life, it is very unlikely that you will have much success either.

So this common viewpoint of internet income as an escape from the constraints and burdens of the physical economy, is just not realistic. This does not mean you should not try to have success on the internet until you are successful in your physically present life, rather, it means that as you find things that work online to enhance your life and build networks, those things should be used in your physically present life as well, and you will tend to see more rapid gains. You can definitely learn how to succeed online, it is a challenging environment, but growth and progress will happen much more quickly if you transfer those lessons to your physically present life.

Reducing Costs and Breaking Limitations

What the internet can do for you, is save you costs on things that you know from experience can work. It is much easier to send an email than make a cold call. But if you just try blindly emailing companies or opportunities you will not get much feedback and so will have little indication of what is working. By gaining experience with a cold call, even though this is more costly and time consuming up front, it will help you figure out how to use electronic communications more effectively.

Perhaps the best example of this is to build a website or resource that is always available and carefully crafted in order to do what you would have to do in person otherwise. People can see photos, read descriptions and history, gain basic information and more. If you know what kind of business or enterprise you are building, then a website is the lowest marginal cost way to spread information.

However, websites do have huge up front and ongoing costs, even though the marginal cost of distribution is tiny.

This brings us to the final advantage of the internet: it breaks down limitations to allow you to have a level of success and reach you could not attain otherwise.