The past 100 years have characterized by significant changes in every aspect of society. Obviously many new technologies such as medical systems, transportation, and computers have altered our world forever. Perhaps the most important technological advance has come from the Internet, and in recent years a important change emerging from this technology has been the emergence of the home-based internet business.

It is quite amazing to recognize the significant changes that have occured in recent years with regard to self employment. For most of recorded history, the masses of people not lucky enough to be born into aristocracy were forced to work the land for a living, either as farmers or hunters. Since the start of the industrial age, anyone who wanted to work for a salary was generally required to work for a large established company at the company site. It wasn't until the 1990's when the Internet became available and presented new possibilities for people to work from home while staying connected to the world through their computers.

There are several great reasons why someone would want to become self-employed in a home based business:

1. A home-based business offers a wonderful style of living when it becomes successful. As a self employed worker, you can choose your own hours to work, wear whatever you want, take vacations whenever you like, and spend as much time as you want with the people you love.

2. A home-based business lets you keep the financial rewards of your own efforts. In a standard job at a standard company, you get paid a wage or salary that is determined by the boss and by company policies. You may get a raise and a promotion from time to time, but unless you manage to get promoted all the way up into the executive suite, your financial rewards are always going to be more limited than you would like.

3. In a home-based business, you have the freedom to try multiple things and earn income in several different ways. With a regular job, a company hires you for having a specific skill and they expect you to use this specific skill repeatedly until you retire or quit. In a home-based business, you can constantly learn new skills and try new opportunities, and the work becomes much more rewarding as a result.

Most of these advantages of a home-based business were greatly augmented or even made possible by the Internet. Home workers can now keep in contact using email or instant messenger and advertise their product or service using the web. In several cases, completely new business models have resulted from the overwhelming worldwide adoption of the Internet as an information and product resource.

Many people think that it takes really strong technical and entrepreneurial skills to start a new successful Internet business. But while these skills surely can be useful, there are actually many more opportunities than most people think for average people to start and run a successful home-based Internet business.

So what sort of home-based internet business opportunities exist today? There are several successful approaches:

1. Affiliate Programs. Many established companies want to explode their sales volume by allowing other people (like you) to advertise their products. In this business, you advertise these products on your own website or via your own emails, and the company will pay you a fixed percentage of every sale. This business works especially well for digital products like ringtones, MP3 download services, and instructional materials but also works fine for many other products like beauty products, travel services, and insurance.

2. Digital Product Creation. If you have special knowledge or skill in a particular area you can create your own ebook, movie or digital recording to teach this to other people. Many people have become successful selling their information to consumers over the internet, in fields ranging from playing the guitar to learning yoga to finding travel deals.

3. Blogging. The latest Internet craze is blogging, which is the process of creating and updating a web diary on any topic you choose. People with special knowledge of interest to a large number of people have written blogs that attract many thousands of people per day. These blogs earn money using affiliate programs and other advertising systems like the Google Adsense program.

4. Online Stores. Some people find success by becoming vendors of physical goods like computers or cameras or DVD movies. With some initial effort, it is possible to find suppliers of these goods at wholesale prices, so people who pursue this business model will buy a quantity of items at a low price and will resell the individual items at a higher price. It is a traditional "buy low sell high" business but the internet makes it possible to buy, advertise, and sell these items much more effectively than in the past.

5. Internet Marketing Systems. The process of learning to run a successful home-based business has itself become a business. Several good programs now exist that provide average people with an opportunity not only to learn the skills needed to run a successful home business but also to market and sell these training packages to others. People who pursue these opportunities are most successful if they take a dual approach of applying what they learn about Internet businesses to a wide variety of other products (such as ringtones, ebooks, other physical goods) as well as reselling the Internet business training system they used to get into business in the first place.

The bottom line is that there is an abundance of opportunity made available by the Internet for motivated individuals to earn a living in their own business. Such a business does require a certain amount of work and a willingness to learn some new things, but it is not as difficult as many people think. And with all the advantages that a home-based business offers, making the effort to try out a new business can be very rewarding.