Although I fully agree with the simping and white-knighting attitude polluting the hobby in general, I think you are totally underestimating the capabilities for the 30s-40s to generate an income and wealth way beyond the decent mark.
These people are the tech generation and most of them are very experienced geeks at that age. It’s not rare for them to reach an income level beyond 250K very quickly in their career, and when they attain a certain reputation they are constantly getting offers from big tech companies, that’s why they move around regularly.
As an example of this I have a friend who is in the video games industry, he was an artistic director for a major world wide player here in Montreal, earning 125K in 2019. Since then he’s moved 4 times, putting up a small hive of talent that follows him around. Today, his income averages 450K, he certainly not the only one in this situation. I’m telling you, those geeks have lots of money to spend.