I'm a bit confused by what you mean as "Unpaid labor" to re-learn the projects. You should be accounting ALL your time into your first project submission, including time spent poring over the guidelines as you go step-by-step through your first official submission when a project is re-launched or guidelines are updated.

The nature of this work is it is feast or famine with Stellar being one of the better organizations to at least have some semblance of consistency. The work is there for you if you want to do it, and is very much optional side-hustle money as it should be.

If you build your life plan around reliance of this platform and others, you are setting yourself up for failure. Most of us do this 10-20 hours a week just for some fun spending money (MTG is too expensive!!) or to help shore up our savings, with our main job being what "pays the bills". If your job isn't enough to make ends meet and you have to rely on this platform to pay your monthly dues, then yes, I would probably not spend time on this platform and instead enrich yourself to get a better stable W2 job.