this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2025
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Just wondering, as i am bored an curious because I'm in a position in life where i can get a job/cant travel to work. I remeber before I switched to lemmy and back when I used reddit, most people would promote their affiliate stuff or something, which really bothered me as it was quite common.

What legitimate ways are there to make money on the side from online without having a job? If you have questions, please leave a comment.

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[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 17 points 6 hours ago

Feet pics on only fans.

[–] Peter_Arbeitslos@feddit.org 15 points 6 hours ago

There are ways, so many ways. I myself make 100,000€/week with the methods which you find in my book named "Rich, rich, rich - Easy, easy, easy". For you it costs just just 40€ (last 11 chapters not included). PM me for becoming rich!

[–] FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 9 points 4 hours ago

If you do stuff for money, you got yourself a job. It might not be a full time job, but it's still a job.

A lot of that scammy shit or doing stuff like surveys usually amounts to a pittance if not an outright loss and/or serious legal problems.

It sounds like you are looking to be hired into or create for yourself, a job of some kind: Find something you are good at already or go to school for whatever it is you want to learn/get certified for, work on making connections that'll help you get a job, and put in the work.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 7 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

The only way to make money without work is to be part of the owner class that lets others do all the work.

[–] andrewta@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Technically, I’m sorry, but that’s incorrect. Even if you own a company, you are still doing work. You may not be doing the physical manual labor, but you’re still doing work.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 7 points 2 hours ago

Not if you are rich enough you don't. Most people still do because everybody needs something worthwhile. But you don't strictly need to work when you have reached some arbitrary level of wealth and ownership.

[–] Bustedknuckles@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

If you parked a million dollars in QYLD, you'd get about $120k per year (pretax) in exchange for your contribution to society of "having a spare million dollars"

[–] False@lemmy.world 6 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Mostly gig job type things. If you're in a very low income country something like mturk might not be awful. Lots of demand for AI training data labeling these days - this is work like drawing a box around a dog in a picture so a model can be trained on what dogs are. The pay is very low though because anyone can do it so it attracts lots of people from poor countries.

If you're not in a low income country then you need to be highly skilled so you can get things like programming or art gigs - I've heard of people doing those but I don't know the websites offhand.

The other option is stuff like stock market trading or crypto (ie gambling).

But yes, I'd assume the things people promote are all scams.

[–] planish@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 hours ago

You have methods that amount to making yourself an online job, or an offline job with a lot of online communication (independent software contractor, commission artist, author, sex worker, online course teacher, Etsy knit hat manufacturer, etc.).

You also have various flavors of capitalism, which may not count, as you did say "legitimate". But if you already have ten million dollars, you can spend lots of time researching stocks and evaluating pitches for businesses and maybe get a better return than you would otherwise, all online.

And then you have merchanting, wholesaling, or furniture-flipping type approaches: buy stuff online, refurbish it or repackage it in smaller quantities, translate all its documentation correctly, vouch for its quality and fitness for purpose, take nice photos of it, market it, sell it, deliver it, and support it.

[–] cathray@feddit.org 5 points 6 hours ago

In order to make money you need to sell something for more than its production costs you. You can either sell something at a small margin to a lot of people or something at a big margin to a few. Selling at a small margin to few people doesn't make you a living and selling at a big margin to a lot of people just isn't possible. Selling at a big margin to a few people means you need to find a specific community, become a part of this community and sell something to them they want enough to justify the price. Furry porn would e.g. fall in this category. Alternatively you can sell at a small margin to a lot of people. In this case you need to find a bland and generic product so it appeals to a lot of people, and find a method to produce it so cheaply that other people can't easily undercut your price, and finally find a spin to advertise it to a majority. In this category are all "livestyle products" that sell to underclass white people the idea they'd belong to the middle class. Also selling mainstream books and music would fall under this category.

[–] turbowafflz@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

I mean I think anything you do that makes enough money to be worth it is just a job at that point right? Like you could start streaming on twitch or something, but once you start making money from it, it becomes a job.

[–] andrewta@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

No.

If you count having a job as even working for yourself and doing the work. Then if you want the money then you are doing a job. Only thing that changes is who you work for

[–] Angelevo@feddit.nl 2 points 6 hours ago

Not really. You can either gamble (which is a terrible idea) or be a criminal (even worse). I have read about some apps/sites where you can do minor tasks for tiny amounts of money, cannot imagine those are worth your time.

Learn to create something meaningful, something people value, and sell it. That is sort of a job, or a hobby turned into a source of income. Depends on how you choose to frame it.

[–] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 2 points 2 hours ago

Only if you already have a ton of money, and it won’t be what you think.

[–] randombullet@programming.dev 2 points 2 hours ago

The boring answer is something like a bond or CD ladder, or treasury bill focused ETF that'll give you 3% a year before taxes.

2 million dollars can safely net you 50,000 a year without working.

And since it's mostly federal bonds, you could be tax exempt up to a certain amount.

Of course this is the US POV.

And there are riskier investments that can hit 8ish% with only $600,000, but you'll be at the whim of high risk high reward.

If you're wanting to hit the tax free limit of $15,750 a year (total income) then 3% APY is $525k.

Or go super risky run options.

[–] bklyn@piefed.social 1 points 5 hours ago
[–] pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 39 minutes ago

How unethical are you ok with being? Dropshipping is an easy way to make money with low effort but it's a pretty shitty thing to do

[–] Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world 0 points 1 hour ago

Vote blue no matter who!

[–] webkitten@piefed.social 0 points 6 hours ago

Well in university in 2000, there were these apps you could install on your computer to make money while ads showed up.