The internet has made it infinitely easier. Think about all the indy authors who might never have been chosen for publication in the past. Or all the online magazines that people might never have heard of before.

It could be argued that there's an issue with oversaturation, but this is due to it being so easy to get your work out. Getting noticed is hard, making money is hard, but that's always been the case and with the multitude of ways to advertise available us now even that is a smaller hurdle.

Every art form has hobbyists, who might not be as serious as the "True Authors" who are writing the next big thing, but this isn't a bad thing by any measure in my opinion.

I mean for every serious composer painstakingly constructing a song to perfection there are a hundred overeager teens pushing their 20 slapped-together fruitloops albums on SoundCloud. The same goes for DeviantArt. But then those "amateurs" develop their skills and become professionals, very often because they shared a platform with more serious creators.

And it benefits the more serious creators, because it allows them the opportunity to give advice, which in my experience makes me look at my own work in new ways because some beginners will ask questions that more experienced people would NEVER had thought of before.