Totally true but it's far easier to negotiate when you have a legally tangible asset for trade. Like if you express interest in buying my painting we might have different ideas on the price but there's no question about the basic idea that it could have a commercial value. If we lived in an earlier era and you commission a portrait of yourself or so it was quite questionable whether such things were even a commercial item.

Now digital distribution has upended the copyright model because you no longer need the resources of a publisher to distribute your work (good) but as creative work proliferates it's as hard as ever to polish and market it successfully and more difficult than it was to monetize (bad).

Of course it depends what you're doing. Some people make a fortune just yakking opinions into a webcam on YouTube or suchlike, and that's working out great for many many people. It's my bad luck that my tastes are a long way outside the mainstream and I'm not so brilliant that I can just crank out some commercial stuff on the side when I want cash.