I frequently talk to civies about my job as an esc0rt, and prolly 75%+ of the the time I get asked "why don't you do online work instead?" as if a) it's any of their business and b) like I didn't think of that myself already.

In my experience, online work has the highest financial barrier of entry (I've easily spent at least 3k on setup this past year including camera, mic, lights, internet, computer with decent ram, costumes, toys, sets, etc). You can work with a studio, but they take a lot of $$$.

When people think of SW, especially online SW, they forget that it's a small business that we, in some way, have to financially invest in before we see returns. Our work also requires some specific skillsets that you don't frequently learn elsewhere; you have to learn as you go.

Even if you have the setup and the skillset, you are still dependent on the websites to give the traffic you need to your profile or your room, and when there's restrictions on how SWers can appear online, you get more and more limited in how you can reach potential clients.

I dunno where I'm going with this but, in short, civies don't know shit about SW and need to stop trying to give me career advice.