Around September, I made a mini-program. Through Xianyu's traffic monetization, I successfully activated traffic monetization yesterday, but no one visits it, and I don't know how to promote it. After promoting it, how do I maintain a balance between revenue and expenses [because the API is paid]!

This is my mini-program QR code:
Not counting server costs [the server also hosts a website, ignore that], the costs are as follows,
The homepage API is free, image watermark removal 0.15/time, video watermark removal 0.1/time, smudge watermark removal 0.15/time, ID photo generation 0.1/time, video reverse prompt words 0.1/time, smart cutout 0.025/time, image pixelation free
How do I promote it so people come, and then make money?

What is your main business direction, boss?
If it really doesn't work out, just change jobs. Rather than being worn down to death, I think it's better to take the initiative and go on the offensive.

Of course you can do a side hustle, but it's especially hard to monetize it in a short time.

Cocos frontend at a game reskinning company, no real technical depth. I used to write some code, but now that we have AI, I don't even need to write code anymore.

Personally, I suggest looking at things from a broader perspective.

Back then, I also wanted to do development, but ended up in operations.
Don't limit yourself too much to the path of writing code.

If you look at operations, or even IT sales, IT pre-sales, and other directions, there is actually still room in all of them.

As for side hustles, I don't have any good suggestions. The side hustles I did before were a bit lowbrow, mainly registration-type and idle-running-type stuff. With the Cybersecurity Law now, the risks are too high, so I suggest not touching them. I suggest focusing on your own AI capabilities and crossing into other fields. For example, short videos, novels, and directions like that.

I also tried making AI short dramas, but the cost was too high. I also made short videos with real people on camera, but monetization in the early stage is too difficult.

Hmm, video costs are high. The barrier to entry is high. If you can get a minimal MVP working, it's worth a try.

The company I'm at now (a listed company in China) is also working on development code. Cross-region, cross-department, and doing quite a lot of it, but all the money comes from ops projects.

I feel like development has become so competitive that it's hard to sustain long-term, while ops can still hold on through manpower and experience—you won't starve in the short term, but it's exhausting.

Yeah, now that AI has come out, sometimes I feel like AI is even more awesome than programmers. This month I'm still planning to do game gold farming, and then use AI to write automation scripts.

In the short term it's fine, but in the long term you still need to consider a side hustle direction that allows for continuous accumulation.
I used to spend a long time on the "sign-up, idle-running" direction, and I relied on that to get married and have kids, but it still wasted a lot of my time.

I should have come to my current industry and direction earlier.

In real life, I'm not good with words, not tactful enough, and only have a vocational school diploma. I don't even know what other industries I can work in. Sigh, I feel so lost.

You can do frontend for a game company, you can do mini programs, and you can play with AI to this extent.

I think your learning ability is already ahead of a lot of people, so don't rush to put yourself down.
The disadvantage of your educational background can't be smoothed over, but you can prove yourself with projects and a portfolio.

They're all just ordinary jobs. Anyway, personally, right now I'm mainly looking at whether I can use your skills to switch myself onto a relatively more stable track and get a side hustle working.

Indeed, once a side hustle is up and running, even if you lose your job, you can be a bit more at ease.