I had a job. The company didn’t realize that they actually had to sell product to stay in business. Almost all of the workforce was let go or furloughed. I’ve been unemployed for over a month now.
I’ve filled out dozens upon dozens of job apps, starting even before I lost my job. I have my resume public on job listings sites for employers and hiring agencies to find, and I’ve sent my resume to employers and hiring agencies directly. I look through the listings on job boards for each day, mostly limiting my search to a wage that would allow me to make ends meet at home. I’ve solicited and implemented advice from resume design experts. I’ve had one in-person interview, a few preliminary phone interviews, and a couple of message conversations between recruiters and myself. The one in-person interview I had would not have paid enough for my monthly expenses and I was overqualified for the position; they decided against hiring me. I had another interview scheduled and confirmed via a hiring agency’s AI text bot and a human agent’s text; I drove to the scheduled interview place and time and they had no idea that I was supposed to be interviewed. All other communication has either been flat-out rejection or just left me hanging.
I have a Bachelor’s of Science degree from a top 25 ranked university in the US. I have no criminal record. I do have multiple disabilities but they are generally mitigable enough to not affect my work. I have references of my (now) former boss and a (now) former coworker who both praise my impact and aptitude in the factory and office workplace. I’m evidently overqualified for positions that don’t require higher experiences and I’m underqualified for nearly everything else; I can’t get experience in most niche or broad fields because nearly every position requires these experiences to have already been met. I try to follow all the invisible rules of applying and social etiquette. I am too physically ugly to sell my body. It feels like there’s always been a magical aura about me that makes people dislike me no matter how much I try to do the ethically or socially right thing. How am I supposed to get an income to survive?
I’ve watched a few youtube videos about “getting paid to be you” that boil down to doing hobby-type activities you are good at - like knitting or playing chess or whatever - on a youtube channel, with a paid membership level that gets people in on a monthly zoom call. Looks are not a factor and the goal isn’t to go viral or become a youtube celebrity. You just have to be able to explain and demonstrate beginner-level skills at something to people who are at an even lower level. This one says her members pay $30/mo and she gets 5 or 6 people at a time in zoom calls. I imagine you could do this for pretty much any craft skill you are halfway good at. It would take very little time per month, and the arithmetic works out very well - a very modest goal of 100 subscribers at $20/mo = $2k per month. Build that up to several channels and you would have a perfect stay-home job you could live very well on. “Why doesn’t everybody do this then?” Well, tons of people do. These little channels are all over youtube, and if you do the math it’s not surprising at all that they’re able to support themselves with it.
I have a friend who’s a certifiable genius and polymath, who picked up r on his first r gig and became one of their most in-demand devs.
he’s pivoted and is doing almost this very thing.
but: the algorithms are brutal. capturing engagement is critical yet damned, damned hard. he’s one of the smartest people I know, and is struggling to make progress on it, and I suspect will go back to his old employer soon because it’s a hard fucking path.
You mean doing the math on how a market with limited demand but where almost every man and his dog can start supplying with no overhead is likely to be rapidly saturated?
That’s not math, that’s just meme-grade Econ 101 to add fake weight to your skepticism. Youtube has been around for almost 20 years and “the market” for skill hand-holding isn’t saturated at all. It’s not even a single market, it’s a broad spectrum of niche markets.
broad yet shallow and depending entirely on opaque algorithms beyond the user’s ability to ken much less control…
and they aren’t wrong about the market being instantly oversaturated, discovery is a real problem and it’s pretty fucking difficult.