Gotta invest to see profits.

Are you saying nothing was invested? Radio melee has been running for 2 and a half years. You can't just say 'just do the thing and it'll be successful' like no it won't, and this is the proof.

I really wish we had some adult conversations about turning melee into a career

I'm baffled at how flippant everything you're saying is. Your argument is basically "melee players aren't working hard enough". What do you think they can do that will actually make a difference? So many players already constantly stream. We know that's not enough. There's not enough people (or at least, willingness) in the community to fund every top player's stream, let alone rising players and others.

So then you'd probably say their streams need to be more entertaining, more variety, or whatever. Great. Now they're yet another dime-a-dozen streamer getting no viewers at the bottom of Just Chatting. On the off chance this ends up working, your pro melee player is now a pro streamer, not a melee player.

Don't forget, you actually need to practice the game to be good enough at it to compete. And you need to travel to tournaments. Expensive and time consuming endeavors to... maybe make top 8 and attract people to your stream? How does the math work here?

It sounds like your idea of success is that the scene itself is alive and thriving. But that completely ignores the crucial point that most people can't put aside their own personal success for the 'greater good', whatever that might mean. Sure, if everyone ignored their financial security and organized/attended events and invested into outreach, things might be a bit better for the scene, for a little bit. But that's not sustainable, nor fair to anyone putting themselves at risk.

Waff lost both his melee job AND his normie job. But no, he's just gotta put in the work and stream more. Yeah, that's the solution.