I used to think the same thing OP said because I had done it. It turned out, though, that my niche was poker, a game that conditions the people that play it to blow through money like there's no tomorrow. My niche was full of a) people who have a lot of discretionary income and aren't as attached to it as people generally should be and b) people who makes six figures (or more) per year off of group a.
Your niche is probably much poorer and much thriftier, and then much smaller on top of that. So you're going to have to get tremendous market share (pretty much all of it perhaps) to make real money.
The same is true with ads. I could get thousands per month running ads on my poker blog at a time when I hadn't posted on it in 6 months because anyone who clicks an ad is going to make the poker site $100 on average. My guess is you'd be lucky to make anything off someone who clicked an ad on your site.
I still think that most passion's are monetizable enough that you could make a real amount at them, but maybe not all are, and the difficulty in doing so and the maximum you can make varies widely.
True. Having the right "passion" makes a big difference. If you have a passion around doing advertising for Fortune 500 companies, you'll probably do just fine. On the flip side, if your passion is helping penniless orphans...it might be a while before you can monetize that ;)
Your niche is probably much poorer and much thriftier, and then much smaller on top of that. So you're going to have to get tremendous market share (pretty much all of it perhaps) to make real money.
The same is true with ads. I could get thousands per month running ads on my poker blog at a time when I hadn't posted on it in 6 months because anyone who clicks an ad is going to make the poker site $100 on average. My guess is you'd be lucky to make anything off someone who clicked an ad on your site.
I still think that most passion's are monetizable enough that you could make a real amount at them, but maybe not all are, and the difficulty in doing so and the maximum you can make varies widely.