You sit at your computer for hours at a time, reading, researching, and writing. Then you go to another hub, blog or website and post comments, links, and pleas for people to come by and read all your hard work so you can make a few pennies on AdSense.

AdSense? Nonsense. What I'm seeing is a LOT of time invested, for LITTLE return, unless of course you spend about two years at it, or have a couple hundred hubs, blogs, or a super popular random web page like PeopleofWalmart.com under your belt.

I will admit this right now, I have not been at hubpages for more than a week. I've written at Helium for about five months, and I've had various short lived blogs or journals for the past four years or so. I don't have a lot of experience in writing online, much less making money at it. So please don't cut me down too much if I'm grossly mistaken.

We all know it, we all read the rules.

Helium.com:

Can you earn money at Helium? Sure you can, but you have to maintain at least one rating star, and those are some picky little devils. Compare two articles against each other to help the high quality articles rank above the crappers. The hard part? You have to do it constantly, because the rating stars "twinkle out" inexplicably, even if you don't slack off. And let's not even mention the crazy, mysterious system they have to determine whether or not you get those precious stars. Rate too many articles at a time, and the system considers that low quality rating. Choose the article that is not the popular favourite, and your percieved rating quality goes down again.

There are other issues that make it difficult to earn at Helium, but there are also loads of other hubs that talk about them. Maybe I'll do a whole hub on it.

Don't get me wrong though, I do like the site, and I do use it. Why? Because I find it good practise. The titles are ready-made, there's visible competition which is a motivator, and there is potential to earn real money in the Marketplace.

Elance:

I don't have any experience here, but from what I gathered by browsing over the site, you have to be a pretty serious freelancer to bother with it. Not for bloggers. From what I've read about it, it can be a hassle too between difficult clients and awkward payment situations.

Reviewme.com:

I wrote a perfectly legitimate and helpful review of a brand new product I'd recently purchased and was slammed with a rejection message in all capital letters. It was something to the effect of: "WE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR REVIEW. IT IS NOT HELPFUL OR VALUABLE."

I was so shocked I had to read it twice.. I've never been so harshly rejected except when I worked at GoodLife Fitness (gym membership sales over the phone...more on that later).

Blog Sites in General:

Basically the same as this site; you certainly can make legitimate money from AdSense, however you need to be on the site for at least a year, working your ass off writing catchy, interesting, and informative articles for people who will only actually read 20% of what you've spent so much time on, and most times will only "view" your page for about four seconds.

I guess the whole point of this rant is that making money online is a Holy Grail. Many thousands of people see it happening to other people, therefore it must be possible, correct? I see it all over hubpages, people with 200+ articles who have been here for over two years.

But that's the catch, you have to have a lot of content, and more than a lot of traffic. Because personally, I've only ever clicked on an AdSense ad once. (That ad was HubPages, believe it or not!)

We've all been told it's not easy; you have to stick with it, be patient, and work hard. We all understand this, but I'm willing to bet that deep down there is still part of each one of us that is clinging to that holy image of "passive income" streaming in from the Internet while we sleep. Besides, I thought we turned to the Internet for "easy money".

After all that pessimistic grumbling I think I may be shot down by some people who really have found their Grail and made some cash by writing online. So first off, kudos to you guys! You stand as motivation for myself and other newcomers who envision ourselves measuring up to your achievements somewhere in the distant future.

That is the one thing I do think is useful about choosing to write here: Forget money, forget popularity and page views and AdSense, and realize that you've just been introduced to an enormously helpful community of writers from all corners of the globe. If you truly are interested in sharing or expanding your knowledge, improving your writing, or just letting some thoughts out to an audience of very friendly strangers...this is the place to do it. The money, popularity, page views and AdSense will come eventually, but never if you force it.