The sad reality is that cosplay was pretty much always dominated by selling "lewds". It's just come into more focus now. Look at the thread about who people's favorite costume options are. It's a vast majority saying they prefer to choose sexy outfits. Sex sells. And really in cosplay it's one of the only parts that actually sell. If you look at those cons, look at who gets the attention, look at what they sell the most of at booths, how they present themselves etc. A rare occurrence may be someone is hired by a game company or otherwise to represent that character at a show or otherwise. But it's a contract gig, and doesn't pay the bills forever.
You could create a YouTube channel, but there's a lot. It may be cynical, but you can probably gauge the success of any given cosplay/modeling/influencer YouTube channel by the amount of skin exposed in the thumbnail/episode.
The reality is, it's a hobby, not a stable career. So people do what they have to.
It just sucks that it kind of becomes the defacto expectation because it's what is successful in a traditional sense.
