Is Making Money Online Too Good to be True?

Every now and then a post pops up over on Lonely Planet’s Thorntree forum like this one and more recently, this one. They’re a skeptical bunch over there let me tell you!

They seem to like to group us hard working web developers in with the scam artists who sell ‘websites in a box’ and eBooks with crammed full of recycled information. I’m completely skeptical about those types of products too, but I’m also able to see the other opportunities that are out there that can only be capitalised on with a bit of hard work.

I guess it’s easy for people who’ve never heard of monetising websites to be dubious about the whole operation. Perhaps they think that anyone making money online is only able to do it by ripping off newbies like them. Do they think that everyone telling them that money can be made online are all in cahoots, working together to dwindle them out of their hard earned cash? Maybe it all just seems too good to be true and people just assume it’s a con.

Maybe I would have assumed the same thing if I was new to this. It’s hard for me to guess what my reaction would have been because I started this so long ago. I’ve known from the start that making money is possible but haven’t been able to make any of my own until recently. If I had never worked on a website in my life though I might be singing the same tune as the Lonely Planet doubters.

Did it take some convincing for you guys to believe money could be made online or were you a believer from the moment you heard about this? Does it sound too good to be true to you? It really just takes a quick look around the web at various affiliate programs, Adsense, Text Link Ads etc. to see that this is the real deal but many of the people over on the forum don’t want to believe a word of it and don’t bother investigating further.

I can see why they’re skeptical but I can’t understand why our simple explanations still fail to convince them. I’m not too worried about it though… I guess it’s one less travel related website I’ll have to compete with!