Do people that have popular blogs make lots of money from them?

Not really. Gruber over at Daringfireball.net did. I am lucky to cover my hosting cost with my blog/forum clusterhole.

Now that I actually read what you said. Yeah you can but the keyword is “popular”. Gruber gets way more hits a day than Fluther. Like 10X as many.

Not many of them make that much money.

Perhaps the most successful blogger has been Arianna Huffington, who sold her blog/news aggregator “Huffington Post” for $315 Million, but most aren’t that lucky. How successful a blog is depends on the usual and predictable things: popularity/readership and the ability to attract and retain sponsorship.

Most of the people I know do not make any money from their blogs. They pay to have the blog. The only one’s I know that make money are employees of a newspaper or other company.

Not most of the blogs, no, because there are so many blogs. But there are people who are professional bloggers and make enough money to live off of blogging. They’re normally not just solo bloggers, but with a larger website that employs a few bloggers and pays them.

I know one guy who does. He makes a very comfortable living from two blogs, and he conducts workshops telling how to do it. I guess he makes money from those as well.