• @dressupgeekout
    link
    112 years ago

    This is a great little article from an oblivious point of view, hah. Let me practice my (leftist, critical) response skills:

    These 4 business which “you can start today” with a “cost to start” ranging from $0 to $99 make HUGE assumptions about who “you” are in the first place. It is true that enabling affiliate marketing/AdSense/whatever “costs” zero dollars, but we know that only makes sense if you’re in a position to make YouTube videos in the first place – and the best YouTube videos are the ones with the biggest up-front, capital investment to begin with.

    Chang’s reflections on his success on YouTube do not take into account the fact that, above all, he GOT LUCKY with his “viral” videos on personal finance. No one is guaranteed the kinds of income that he’s getting just by enabling AdSense on his videos.

    Chang refers to all of this as “passive income,” which is certainly appealing to the ear, but then paradoxically goes into detail about how much active maintenance is required in order to make it all happen. He dismisses the ACTUAL WORK he did to set up a landing page and an automated email campaign (!) and to “upload videos consistently”, 3-4 times a week (!!) My guy, that is what ordinary people call a job. Maybe even a full-time one.

    And of course, the suggestion to rent out a room makes sense – reliably – only if already you’re a property owner. Landlords are very critical of Airbnb/etc. and they definitely crack down on their tenants subletting at all.

    TL;DR Charlie Chang’s tips only apply to people of certain means, and the “cost to start” of “$0” is incredibly misleading.