I do it fulltime, but it took a while for me to figure out what works for me. There are people that can make money almost right away doing it and people that will never make money at it no matter how long and hard they try.
You need to be able to get traffic to your site(s) and you have to make more off of that than you do on content and bandwidth.
If you can't do that now part time - there is no reason to believe you will be able to full-time. I know some adult webmasters who make some serious cash. I think - on average, most people lose money.
Most important of all, if you are looking for any real advice - disregard everything you read on this board.
I see things on TV with the Internet Toolkit and what not - what a joke. Many people think if you put up a few sites that you will make money. I tried to talk this one woman out of spending money on a lease at an "internet mall".
My advice - don't quit your dayjob until you can see a profit that you can scale up. If you can make a PROFIT doing TGPs (I don't, but some do) one day a week - figure out what it would cost you for bandwidth and content to do it 7 days a week. You should be able to figure out if you would make a profit, even if you are not now.
If you don't know what you are going to do that day to make money, don't quit your job. I have a plan, and so do most people that make a profit.
To answer your question as to why people do it if they aren't making money:
1) Some people are under 18 and have no need for income - this is a hobby/business for them. You will find many children on this board.
2) Some hate their job and want to give it a try.
3) Some think it will be easy money.
4) Some do actually make money doing it.
To me it is the perfect job. I love it. I don't do the normal TGP/FreeSite stuff to make money, but have used those techniques. I can work my ass off at three in the morning if I want - or do nothing the next day if I have somewhere to go.
I have no employees - and no real boss. I probably "work" more than 40 hours a week, but it doesn't seem like work. I know of no other job in the world where I can make $35-40 per sale of a $2.95-$4.95 trial. As far as expenses go - they are very low for a small business. If I have one bad month - I still will be ok.
Good luck.
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