I read this earlier in the day, and I've been thinking about it a lot since. In many ways, my story mirrors the one in the blog post. However, I've been fortunate enough to make my living at it. I too started by encountering a lot of "internet marketing" gurus.

I was lucky enough to find one idea that let me make a fair amount of money, relatively easily. Back in the day, Google SEO was shockingly easy. Looking back, I probably could have made many times the amount of money that I did with SEO.

All things come to an end, and eventually SEO became much harder. Fortunately, by the time that happened, I had learned enough to be able to pivot my business.

I've ended up building a business that I'm proud of. I get emails all the time from people thanking me for the free services I provide.

The OP talks about a lot of marketing techniques that have worked very well for him in the past. I think what he may have missed is this: A marketing technique is not a business. A business is a set of activities that create a sustainable competitive advantage. A product is not a business, a marketing technique is not a business, any skill, no matter how well developed, is not a business. A business is a system -- a combination of activities that hopefully support and reinforce one another.

I'm always looking for new ways to add stability and strength to my business. In fact, I get pretty "terrified" at any hint of weakness. Sadly, there are lots of hints of weakness. But, I've managed to do this for ten years. Hopefully I'll be lucky enough to continue for many more.