"Professional" photography (especially for children / weddings) can be viewed in the same light. I know many professional photographers, and with the exception

"Professional" photography (especially for children / weddings) can be viewed in the same light. I know many professional photographers, and with the exception of one who does a lot of commercial work (that requires probably $200k in lights, medium/large format cameras, backdrops, lenses, etc.) the ones who have been able to make a long term living out of it? They make probably half their income "teaching" their amateur competition how to do "shoot like the pros!" They make a killing off of bloggers and amateurs (usually bored housewives looking to make some money on the side) trying to get started in the biz. People try to emulate them and their social media prowess, their blogs, etc. but what they don't realize is that all the blogs and social media presence are there for is to generate business from other photographers - they get their wedding business from established relationships with venues and coordinators because the customers that come through those channels are willing to pay 10x what someone who finds you online will. So they'll charge $400 a head for a day-long class with 7-12 paying customers, and that's where the real money is. Privately, they'll admit to this: they know exactly what they're doing. When you're charging $5,000-10,000 to photograph someone's wedding, there's not as much margin as you would think: for that price, you probably need 3 or 4 additional shooters just to get coverage, and that means 10-20 hours of editing photos after the wedding. Those are all other people you have to pay, wedding albums you have to pay to get made because it was part of the package, etc. and by the end of it, they make way more money on an hourly basis off of the classes than they do the weddings - even at $10k a wedding. So many industries that were "commoditized" have forced professionals to go the "seminar" route. I'm curious if software / app development is next...