I honestly don't think that anyone is actually making a living off of surveys. In my experience, they don't pay enough for basic needs in the countries that have access to them.
For reference, a single individual in the United States needs at least $70,000 a year to cover basic needs, such as food, gas, insurance, rent or property taxes and mortgage payments, etc. In my experience taking surveys, they take about 30 minutes for an average of a $1.50. That's $3.00 an hour X 12 hours a day = $36 a day X365 = $13,160. That's not enough to live on here.
Not to mention the time you waste on disqualifications. Some surveys pay more than that, but others pay less. If you hear about people making "big money", those people got into focus groups or started churning products to game the system. They already had jobs outside of surveys to begin with so they had money to spend on the products the survey people wanted to sell them.