Speaking as an artist, this was untrue for us as well pretty much until the internet democratized things. Prior to this the assumption was that if you're good you should just be able to do it or that it should locked up in guru-like ateliers that parcel it out at high cost like Scientology courses. Of course access to basic art instruction has always been available, but a lot of advanced techniques or knowledge in specific subdomains (e.g. animation) was pretty closely guarded.
