A similar problem with "farmers." A farm worker, and a person who owns a farm, are two totally different economic situations. Both work hard, but the economic outcomes are quite different.

One thing I've always been curious about is: How many trade business owners come from the working class and actually started out as grunt-work tradesmen, somehow ending up owning their company, and how many are from the business class and have never touched a pipe wrench or wire stripper? You never get the picture from these articles. My uninformed suspicion is that the majority of actual owners are not practitioners, and instead acquired or inherited their business. Would love to be proven wrong with data.

Inherited seems quite possible. Historically a lot of trades were family businesses. A son or daughter may have come up through working for the family shop.

A possible alternative path is to take over management of a business from its current owner, and eventually buy it out. Also, just a little bit of seed money might make the difference, e.g., buying a van full of basic tools is expensive, but it's not SpaceX expensive.

I've hired workmen who turned out to be "a couple guys with chainsaws and a pickup truck." So it might be possible to ease your way into a business by starting with smaller jobs.

True, but in most cases, the owner started as a successful, lone plumber.