I guess living the lifestyle is part of the benefit but the successful influencers I’ve seen often pay production crews, rent luxury products like expensive cars, travel, and just a ton of little things that add up. That’s not including the promotion costs like paying to cross promote with other influencers and other growth hacks.
I suspect it’s more like 1-2% make a significant profit.
For every one influencer posing with a sports car in Dubai, there are a thousand other influencers whose content can be produced at very low cost. Video games, parenting, fitness, beauty/make-up/skincare, cooking, woodworking, gardening, backpacking, dancing, DIY, personal finance, etc all have tons of content creators working from home (or the gym, park, shop, whatever).
I know a woman who started posting videos that were just her holding her cell phone recording a selfie video talking about being a mom. She now has brands paying her tens of thousands of dollars to promote their products, and her videos are still just phone selfies sitting on her couch.
I don't think this necessarily applies to all influencers like those with loyal followings, but it's a general pattern I've observed.