The New Economy: How to Make Money Online

The New Economy: How to Make Money Online
Here are 12 ways cache is becoming spending money.

By Chandra Steele June 19, 2012

This is not a guide to how your neighbor's step-aunt's half-sister makes $5,000 a week online.

We'll leave that to spambot commenters. Instead, this is how people are earning anywhere from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars every month with a microeconomy of sorts built on the Internet.

With unemployment at over eight percent for nearly four years, it's no wonder that many are getting creative in order to make a buck. Some are renting out spare rooms and others are assembling IKEA furniture for everyone and anyone within a 20-mile radius. The 99 versus the 1 percent numbers haven't changed, but there's nevertheless a lifestyle shift within those numbers. The wealthy are stepping into the world of online consignment, putting the luxury goods they've grown tired of up for sale at prices within reach of economic tiers below them. While members of the middle class are at their 9-to-5 jobs, MIT grads are doing their laundry for them and waiting for their packages to be delivered.

Economists are rushing to label the phenomenon and its offshoots with terms like "access sharing" and "microlabor" and applying New Keynesian theories to it. Essentially, though, for those most affected by the recession, it's a simple principle: As economic woes grow, solutions to them shrink. And they've shrunk to so little that individuals are down to an economic model with just one variable: themselves.

But they're far from alone. Dozens of sites have gone way beyond lamppost fliers and their slightly more advanced Craigslist Gigs descendants to connect those peddling their skills with those in need of them. In the new economy, entrepreneurship leads to more entrepreneurship, with startups giving many a means to begin their own ventures.

Here are 12 paths some are taking to turning their fortunes around.