Well, the songwriting, practice, equipment, and so on adds up to a full time job for anyone who's actually trying to "make it big". So it's not in any fashion an easy life, even if you ARE Taylor Swift or something of that sort. (And, yes, I'm tired of songs about her last terrible boyfriend.)
Making a living as an artist is ***MUCH*** more iffy than making money as, say, a person who mows lawns. Probably much less physically demanding (but there are physical demands as well), but it's much harder to make minimum wage as an artist, be it musician, painter, whatever.
On top of that, presently looks win out over skill and ability for most record labels. Hence, horrors like "autotune".