The only way to get your foot in the door of the industry I went to college for was by taking on unpaid, full-time internships. Not coming from a family of money, I couldn't take these internships because I had to work to survive, even during college. So the limited internship spots went to my colleagues who could afford to work for free. Which meant that, with professional experience on their resume, they were first in line for the paying ground-level jobs out of college. Those ground-level jobs got them connections, which helped build their career. All while I continued to apply to ground level jobs that I would always lose to people who could afford to have gotten their foot in the door with the internships. Didn't seen to matter how much independent work and DIY experience I built in the meantime--I just didn't have the right names on my resume.
After a while, I became too old to apply to the ground-level jobs any more (no one was hiring someone 5-10 years out of school without that internship experience), and anything higher up was of course completely out of the question. Eventually I had to stop lying to myself that hard work and tenacity would eventually let me in the door, and I have since called it quits.
It was a somewhat rarefied arts industry, but it was the thing I was best at, most passionate about, and worked hardest at to diversify and sharpen my skill set throughout the years. Didn't matter though, because the unpaid internship gatekeeping system created a domino effect that excluded me from anything but the occasional freelance job.
Obviously it's personal for me, but I know I'm not the only one shut out because of this system. I think they should be illegal.