We Have More Tools to Make Money Than Any Generation In History. So, Why Does Making Money Still Feel Basically As Hard As Ever?

Adrian Volenik

Sat, September 19, 2026 at 2:00 AM GMT+3 6 min read

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AI can write, design, brainstorm and automate work in seconds. Anyone with a laptop can open an online store, create digital products, reach people through social media and accept payments almost instantly. By that logic, making money should be easier than ever.

But one person trying to build an online side income isn't feeling particularly liberated. Writing on Reddit's r/passive_income community, they described sitting up at 2 a.m. trying to figure out how people actually turn all these tools into decent income.

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"We have the most powerful technology in human history… so why is making money still so damn hard?" they wrote. "At what point did 'technology gives us more freedom' turn into 'technology gives us 47 more things to worry about'?"

Everyone Else Has the Same Tools

The poster is experimenting with AI and digital products with the hope of eventually becoming self-employed. Instead of simply creating something and selling it, however, they feel like they need to become a designer, marketer, copywriter, social media manager, entrepreneur and content creator simultaneously.

Commenters pointed out the obvious catch: AI made things easier for everyone.

"It's difficult because your competition online is global and there will always be someone willing to do whatever you do for less," one person wrote.

"Making money is still the same… with or without technology," another person was even more direct. "It's all about SELLING!"

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That became the dominant theme of the discussion. Technology can make it incredibly easy to create a website, ebook, app or online store. It can't guarantee that anyone will care about it.

"The real money isn't in the tools, it's in owning the audience everyone's fighting over," another commenter wrote.

Creating Something Is Only Half the Battle

There's also the uncomfortable possibility that social media has distorted people's expectations. We constantly hear about successful side hustles, but rarely about the thousands of projects that earned almost nothing. One commenter called it survivorship bias, while another pointed out that some apparent success stories may simply exist to sell courses teaching others how to make money.

The discussion also highlights a broader lesson about new technology: The opportunity isn't always the headline-grabbing product itself. Investors sometimes look at the infrastructure supporting a boom, similar to selling picks and shovels during a gold rush.

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That's the idea behind Qnetic, a U.S. startup accepting new investors that has developed an energy storage system using kinetic energy instead of chemicals. The company says its battery is designed to last more than 30 years and help meet 24/7 energy demand. If that kind of emerging technology interests you, you can learn more about Qnetic here.

For someone actually trying to earn money online, though, the Reddit discussion kept returning to a much simpler formula: Find a problem people will pay to solve, choose one offer and get good at reaching the people who need it.

AI may make the work faster. It doesn't make somebody want to buy what you're selling.

Image: Shutterstock

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This article We Have More Tools to Make Money Than Any Generation In History. So, Why Does Making Money Still Feel Basically As Hard As Ever? originally appeared on Benzinga.com