Is marketing on the internet for real or just a farce?

Up until 2 years ago I ran my own business, my downfall was, I had just 1 large contract with a major company, they decided to save money and I was first to go. Anyway I decided to have a go at marketing on the internet, it just fascinated me. When I first started the only thing I could do was start a computer nothing else, but I kept on going. After a couple of weeks or so I managed to use Microsoft word and could now turn the computer on and off, my typing skills also started to improve slightly, I could now use 2 hands to type, Being nearly 50 and out of work I just had to try something to earn money. This is the day I became an internet marketer, the next couple of months went by and I read everything I could to familiarize myself with the internet marketing(WOW).Everyone who runs a internet business are multi-millionaires this cant be too difficult I thought ,my main aim was to build my own website and sell products from it. I had purchased several dozen books which gave me an idea how things work, after about 6 months I still hadn't got any further to achieving my goal then I discovered google:adwords "Well I'll give it a ago". I found a affiliate programme to promote and went to work checking my stats to see if i had made a sale and the elusive cash that went with it. $250 dollars down the road. I woke up as usual at 7:30am turned the computer on and looked at my stats and WHAM!! I had sold an E-book for$12.97 it cost me $250 but (hey) it's a start. All day long I went round the house with a smile on my face, my wife was still not convinced I could make a living online but she would look at me strangely but I knew what she was thinking "mug", this attitude did not deter me. I found a program that would help me build a website the software was amazing and I managed to build my goal, a website and was ready to make huge amounts of money. I uploaded the site to my webhost it took me 13 hours to figure out that the graphics to my website had to be uploaded as well. By now I had spent about $2.000 dollars to get this far, another couple of months went by and including myself I had about 10 clicks on my money making website then I read an article which said you have to have it optimized for the search engine to be ranked well. What the hell is optimize and metatags? I still do not know what these mean but I will keep on trying. Many hours of reading and late nights and my hair going grey and I have come to a standstill, is the internet for real or a farce? Are these people who say they make millions really doing this or are they just trying to sell products or services like I am with no success? I would like to sit with one of these so called Guru's from a standing start and see how they do it, if they really do? P.S I got a charge back on my product I sold for $12.97 so I never made any money on it but I didn't tell the wife. I have just one website at the moment http://www.informationline1.com it is very basic,but take a look anyway.