I totally agree that its not easy to earn on the internet because like you rightly said, 80% of internet earnings are from advert placements and endorsements. These is only possible by consistency, and for so many that have main jobs and using the internet as a sidekick.

Also, I need to ask... I heard or rather I was told that sharing links in DMs and comments sections is considered spamming on hive. This information has limited the work I put into any article I post, I barely do any post promotion so I don't get blacklisted or anything like that. So the question now is Sending links to users on hive and asking them to check your post, is this considered as spamming?