Hi. I've been playing poker since around 2001, actually no... I've been gambling and punting on the online poker websites since 2001.

I've certainly never been a winning player because my compulsion to gamble was always quite strong. In the early days of my playing I read all the 2+2 books, Harrington's, Sklansky's etc etc... They certainly helped me to understand very basic poker fundamentals but I always suspected that I should be using the information in those books to show me 'how others are playing' and to exploit that, rather than follow it step by step.

But I never had the commitment.

Recently things have changed, I'm starting to develop a better understanding of the game and can control my gamble compulsion really well. I'm putting a lot of time into studying hands at a very basic level and am reading some of the newer GTO style books - I cannot yet put this advanced strategy into my game but I am seeing improvements in my understanding of hand ranges and combinatorics.

One thing is worrying me though... I have zero access to live cash poker, only online. And I read on here that making a long term profit online is close to impossible nowadays due to rake, bot rings and RTA software. Is this true? If I study hard enough can I turn a small profit in the long term despite these obstacles?

you have to chase action, and that requires meeting people with access to lesser known sites

There is plenty of money left in online poker.
There are easier ways to make more money though.

You can make a profit if you work on your game.
It will be extremely challenging to break the bad habits you've build over the years.

Poker, especially online, needs to be something you love.
If you're in it for the money, it's not going to work out.

Anyone you trust host a game on an app like Pokerrrr2?

You can make money playing online. Your goal is to find way worse players than you are that will make more mistakes than you will do. Selectivity is the key word.