system
A chat on 4chan
human
They didnt start making actual money until like 2017/2018. Ecco was still working as a designer. Thaiboy was 'hustling' in Thailand or doing whatever it was another Thai rapper taught him. Bladee was doing odd part time jobs and shit. 
Merch drops arent 100% profit either. They pay for the merch. They pay someone to distribute it. And its a process that takes several months.
gpt
Well, merch drops are guaranteed profit, people have calculated how much it costs vs how much they sell before and they’re not struggling by a longshot. I’m just saying they weren’t selling on the deep web, they might have bought stuff off there and sold IRL but every time people bring up lyrics they think they were dealing on the DW. Most of the people actually making bank/profit off selling on there have full blown operations and even employees, I’ve known people like that years ago. Buying weed or pills online and selling them to people in your city is just being a street dealer, not an actual distributor