How to profit from written material without some sort of government enforcing my rights to ownership? Do I have to go begging on social media?

Don't really know. Patronage seems to be working well these days. Lots of creators seem to be finding success on services like Patreon. Also, crowdfunding. There needs to be a way to get paid before you create it for the labor of creating it. The creators and their labor are what's valuable, not the end result. Data is infinitely abundant and trying to limit access to data is just insane. It's the 21st century and we have world wide networked computers capable of copying data at massive scales at minimal cost. Paying for data just doesn't make any sense. Once it's out there it's pretty much done.

Okay I pour hours into content and go begging. What is my compensation if it doesn't succeed?

You write a book and nobody buys it or reads it. What's your compensation then?

What about you write the book, it is good, then others take said book and print it themselves to sell on Amazon for less because they don't have to cover the cost of the time and effort that went into writing the book.

The guarantee that if anyone buys or reads it in the future, I can claim my compensation. Otherwise I have to create a perpetual begging campaign and be at everyone's mercy.