We all know that the indie outlets on the Internet are plentiful. Anyone can have a site that does just about anything anyone wants it to do or say. And although there is some kind of an audience for almost any isolated theme or product, let's face the facts-the Internet is nowhere to get rich.

Not only is it nowhere to get rich, it is, regardless of its span (covering the population of the entire planet), hardly a place to make a living. Yet, there are people doing everything under the sun in the way of marketing with only hope and prayers on their side. Good frikkin' luck. Don't give up the day job.

Here's how bad it really is. Let us suppose that the world economic stage ran exactly as the World Wide Web does now. We have only to look at one web site to expose this ludicrous supposition-Café Press.

Here is a grand shopping mall where every Tom, Dick and Harriet build a store to sell customized products. Many Internet free agent musicians build stores to sell shirts, coffee cups and the like to promote their music. I have a store, you have a store and EvO:R has a store. Stocked full. Drop-shipping. No storage of items.

No sales, either.
Café Press makes its money, I assume and not with any great stretch of the imagination, because the people who build the stores are the greatest number of customer. Think about it. You build a Café Press store and you just have to have one of those mouse pads with your logo or CD cover on it, right? Then you say, "Hey, I wouldn't mind having one of those coffee cups. And maybe I'll get a shirt or two for some of my friends." And before you know it you are a hundred bucks in the red. For promotion, of course, so you rationalize.

Now, let's imagine you build a full-fledged store. You sell clothing. Someone comes in and says, "Hey, nice shirt, where did you get it?" You tell him it's for sale in your store. You show him the shelf where he can see one for himself. You ask him if he wants to buy it and he says, "No. I think I'll go build my own store and buy clothes from myself." And then he goes, builds a store down the road and sells the same items as you do. And one of his friends comes in to his store and says, "Hey, nice shirt, where did you get it?" He says it is for sale in the store and that his friend can buy one if he likes it so much. But the friend says, "No. I think I'll go build my own store and buy clothes from myself."

And on and on and on it goes.

Of course the developer of the land the storeowners pay rent to becomes rich. No one else even makes a decent living wage. Then, of course, the middle class disappears and suddenly the entire economy of the world collapses because there are too many sellers and not enough buyers.

This is how the World Wide Web economy works. There is no middle class, no buying public to support the "stores" of free agents. The landowners are making money, all right. But the little guy is supporting his or her products with money made elsewhere. Tell me, where else but on the Internet could this stuff go on? And on and on. When will people become smart and begin doing things differently in a territory where the ordinary means fail day in and day out?