I'm not saying that every cam girl is getting mega rich from it, but they're making good money in relation to the effort required. There's not zero effort but it's also not something you need to go to uni for three years and then spend time as a junior cam girl getting experience. Which is fine, btw, I don't mind it, but I always find it weird when the image is presented blurry as in "we can't really tell whether it's a professional<=>customer relationships or just two people interacting socially", because I think we generally can tell very well.
Because they read that it is easy money. It is repeated time and time again by the cam work is work crowd.
By that argument cleaning hotel rooms is a hobby.
My impression is that many of those that make very little (on the platform, in relation to the top stars) make enough in relation to their time input that it beats cleaning hotel rooms or waitressing.
This is a fundamental mistake that people make when discussing this. As in any content market the money is in the head. Both tail and the long tail could do 2x the work of the head and receive nearly no compensation.