Authenticity in the blogging community went out with powdered wigs and pantaloons. I would love to be a pro-blogger, to me it would be on par with being a professional journalist or some sort of paid-thinker. Just to be appreciated is great and in a capitalist society there's not better show of appreciation than in the bank . On a serious note though, don't hate on people who manage to cut a living from doing what they love - just because you don't see authenticity in their work doesn't mean they're "get rich quick" or "just in it for the money". They're just different to you. I used to be into SEO and online marketing but I just couldn't keep it up - like you say, I was in it for the money and it was like a job I hated (and because i was working for myself I was my own boss, and I gave myself the day off most of the time ). I just started my writing blog back up, it started out as method based but now I'm just in it to explore my own ideas.