So I'm 20 and I've started looking at the salaries of jobs/careers, and this is the impression I've gotten. Like that you could spend years cramming a ton of knowledge about a very niche field, and still only get 2-3x what a run-of-the-mill job makes. Is this true? If yes then I guess this route to wealth would only make sense (due to the diminishing returns) if the topic truly spoke to you, right? Are there alternative career paths to good pay than being really good at something really specific?
Definitely, you just have to look at a few random biographies critically. For example, you know how many competitors Amazon had in the Y2K era? They named a whole bubble after all the pretty much identical ones that went bankrupt.
Best of luck with your search. I'm curious, which way are you leaning for yourself?