Online scams are one thing and legitimate online work is something else. But first it might help to disabuse one's self of a few notions. Somewhere between get-rich-quick schemes and digital galley slavery are some real business opportunities. Let's walk through the possibilities:

Digital Galley Slavery

There is quite a bit of data entry to be done. If you are a fast typist, you can make money doing transcriptions. There is are problems with this, however. In the first place, organizations pay for work done rather than time spent. In the second, it is usually far more economical to outsource to India, since $15 a day allows a worker in Mumbai to live like royalty, but is far less than minimum wage here.

Content Writing

This is a step up from transcription. If you are a competent writer, you can make around $10 per page creating content for various content creation services. Their markup is around 100% so you are better off freelancing for $25 per page instead of giving someone half of what you could make in exchange for lining up jobs for you. This also faces substantial competition from India.

Keyword-Specific Focused Content Generation

This is a very specific skill which can make around $75 per page, but only if you know exactly what you are doing. To get jobs of this variety, you need to fully understand how to write keyword-based content and have a track record of happy customers. The sort of people who hire for this skill tend to be Internet Entrprenuers who know how to do it themselves and need to generate a steady flow of keyword-based content, but need to free up time to operate other areas of their business. My suggestion would be to apprentice at a lower pay scale during your learning curve, and once you have a proven track record, ask for higher compensation.

Assuming you actually do this, I have a question for you: Why not leverage this skill set for yourself?

Investing In Yourself

Break free of the wage-slave mindset. Instead of thinking in terms of money received for work accomplished, start thinking in terms of investing sweat equity into passive-income assets. This means investing time which makes no money on the front end with the intention of receiving a trickle of income over time. Hubpages are an example of this. Each Hub Page created stands a good chance of providing income over time. Create more Hub Pages and the trickles start to add up. It doesn't pay the bill in the short term, but the more pages you write, the better you will get and the more likely your content will be featured.

Leveraged Opportunities

Many online opportunities are simply people who learned the specifics of how to leverage their skill set and who are selling you what they learned. It's not a scam, but it does require having all the pieces in place AND persistence.

• A friend once said to me, "It doesn't matter how many 90 foot wells you dig when the water table is at 100 feet."
• Another friend once said, "You can replace parts one at a time all day long, but the car still won't run if two things are wrong."
• Another friend once said, "A lot of would rather do things their own way rather than following a proven plan."
  

It is mainly for these three reasons that people fail at implementing legitimate business plans sold over the internet. They are not scams, but they do require having all the pieces in place. What's required is:

• A group of people with money to spend and a problem
  
• A product which solves their problem
• Knowledge of how they discuss their problem
• Your offers for solutions stated in terms they understand
  
• Believable reasons why they should buy your solution
• A sequence of follow-up products at greater and greater price points
• Access to your niche market (This may entail multiple avenues such as live events, phone conferences, print, radio, television, a variety of internet promotional activities such as a properly optimized website with a killer opt-in offer, blogs, YouTube videos, podcasts, webinars, articles and press releases).

Ultimately, all this means work up front on your part, deferring the payoff untill all the pieces are in place. It is not get rich quick. It is building yourself a golden goose in your spare time, while you work a day job. If you keep at it, odds are you will make money eventually, and if you focus on investing yourself into passive income streams, you will likely be able to make money in your sleep.