The fastest method and the best method are usually different, and the gap between them is boredom.
Short answer
The method still works; the numbers you have read are probably from before the last balance pass.
A method patched out often leaves a slower version behind that still works. A purchase that increases your rate either pays for itself or it does not, and that maths is worth doing once. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it.
Methods that aged badly
Selling to a vendor and selling to players are different economies with different risks. A method that was patched still shows up in search results for years afterwards. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. Idle income sounds appealing and is almost always the worst rate available.
Event weeks distort every comparison, and normal weeks are what you should plan around. Nothing below assumes you have read anything else first. Daily and weekly caps make a theoretical hourly rate meaningless past a point.
Setup cost and payback time
Bonus events distort every comparison, and they are also when it makes most sense to grind. The interesting question is usually why the obvious approach fails. Setup cost only matters relative to how long you intend to keep playing.
- Treat anything requiring other players as unreliable.
- Work out the payback time before any upgrade purchase.
- Check the version you are actually running before assuming anything is broken.
- Ignore anything that requires an external site or seller.
- Assume event-week numbers do not hold in a normal week.
- Read the whole sequence once before doing the first step.
The loop worth repeating
A method that requires other players is not a reliable method. Version numbers matter more here than anywhere else in the discussion. Storage and inventory limits quietly cap income in games that have them. The first purchase should be whatever removes the most friction, not whatever is strongest.
Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. Payout figures quoted without a time attached are marketing rather than information. In-game conversion rates are set to lose you value in one direction.
Where the money goes
Half of what gets described as a bug is a design decision people dislike. Group multipliers change the ranking of methods completely, which is why lists disagree. The cap on a given activity matters more than its headline number.
If this seems to describe a different version, it probably does, and that is the thing to check first. Inflation is real in games with open markets, and older guides quote pre-inflation prices. Anything advertised as unlimited has a rate limit somewhere.
Events versus normal weeks
Consensus and correctness overlap less than the upvote count suggests. Time to first payout matters as much as the payout, especially for anything with a setup phase. The best earner is usually whatever you will actually repeat without getting bored.
Where people go wrong
- Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
- Rushing the last step, which is usually the one with the actual requirement in it.
- Confusing a server-side outage with something broken locally.
GTA V FAQ
Why does the community disagree about this?
Because most disagreements are two people describing different versions, platforms or skill levels without saying which.
How long does this take?
Minutes if it goes cleanly, an evening if you hit the edge case in the caveats list. Neither is unusual.
Where should I check if this changes?
The in-game version of the information first, then the official patch notes. Community pages update after both.
Was this method nerfed?
Several popular ones were. Check the date on whatever you are reading before committing an evening to it.
Come back to the caveats list if it does not work first time — the answer is almost always in there.