As a newbie in crypto, I will also feel that "what is this?" "How do people earn from this?"
If you are not getting right answers means you are not asking right questions. "How do I earn bitcoin?" is an example of wrong question constantly coming from newbies. If you want to know how to earn, try googling "How do I earn dollars?". I bet you will not find something new. Just get a job, after all. The best answer. Bitcoin is just another form of money, nothing else. You don't have to have deep technical knowledge in order to use bitcoin and earn Bitcoin. Bitcoin is pretty easy to use and earn and, at the same time, it is pretty hard to fully comprehend. No one in the world can claim he completely grasped what bitcoin is. You should't worry about your lack of knowledge regarding interdisciplinarity of bitcoin. Just find something that is interesting for you, personally and start your research.
You say it correctly, but there are ways to earn bitcoins that differ from the usual work very much. For example, such a phenomenon as mining will not be familiar to a novice if he has never met it before not in the field of cryptocurrency. Mining is a very good way to earn a few coins, but again it is expensive and you need to understand all the risks
Some people are just interested to earn and hate to study about bitcoin deeply, and most of this guys fail and never comeback since they are victimized by scam schemes around. So if people will just interested to know everything about it for sure many will surpass the technicalities especially with those people who struggle on their start ups.