Red, this is all one customer's opinions, so take it fwiw. I steered clear of this thread for the last few days to allow dancers to weigh in first, but this is what I've seen/observed over the last 15 years of hanging out in clubs...
I do not disagree in principle, but I also believe that you are under-estimating what it takes to do very well in this industry. There is a reason that the top X% exists. IMHO not only do they have the looks and work ethic, but they are smart and mature enough to understand the men that they deal with; confident and energetic enough to put their looks and brains to good use; disciplined enough to avoid the normal dancing pitfalls (drugs, scum bag BFs, etc.); and tough enough not to get discouraged or messed up in the head by the things that they see and hear.
Now add on to that the reality that the club and location do matter. A top earner in the corn fields of Kansas is not going to make nearly as much as the top earner in pretty much any Manhattan club, regardless of how skilled she is. Many of the seemingly successful dancers that I've met were migratory animals who moved to better areas to do this. The longer term ones also tended to switch clubs when they thought that they were becoming too stale in any one place. Unfortunately, some girls have life circumstances (kids, other family obligations, etc.) which limit their ability to pick up and move to better clubs and/or areas.
Finally though, doing this job over any period of time seems to require enormous sacrifice. Very few dancers that I've gotten to know to any degree have been able to maintain healthy romantic relationships or even strong family connections while they were dancing, so loneliness becomes a real issue. They also have to be hardened to any judgmentalism (including self judgment) that they may face and many hide what they do. Net-net, dancing can be very isolating. I have seen more than a few otherwise skilled girls leave the industry during what could have been their peak earning years because they could not handle this aspect of the job.
Net-net, while I agree that it is possible to do very well in this, IMHO if it were as easy as you seem to believe then there would be many more wealthy ex-dancers out there.
Anyway, just my

fwiw.
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