I don't really agree with your assessment that people don't want to do DIY website design. Canva, Wix, Squarespace and countless other sites provide this service very successfully. It may be more accurate to say that people don't want to learn from a third party how to DIY website design, and they find the tutorials, templates and help available in their builder platform to be sufficient.

Or it may be that business owners don't want to learn how to design their own websites, but aspiring junior designers do. Perhaps this is the market instead?

That aside, I found your story very interesting. I get ads on YouTube all the time about people trying to sell me a system to sell my own knowledge. After seeing them repeat the same pitch over and over and over - bereft of any detail about how it actually works - I came to the conclusion that it was selling you a dream without substance. It's interesting to hear you confirm that, but I'm sorry that you found it out the hard way.

My view is that there is always someone behind you who is younger or less experienced and who wants to learn what you know in order to accomplish for themselves what you already have. Those tend to be the successful markets - helping someone to get better at what their aspiration is.