I will go a little bit against the grain here.
Becoming a pro in ping pong is definitely incredibly hard wherever you live, and I am pretty sure the only way to become good in America and Australia is pretty much only to pour money into it, because there are no structures in place and only a few good players.
I think it is different if you are in Europe (not all of Europe but a good part of it) and live close to a big city or a big table tennis club. When you are in a big club with some good (and I mean semi-pro and pro level) players (which means there are good coaches too), you have much better chances to make it, and while it involves luck of being born in the right place it does not necessarily involve money (the table tennis scene is just so much bigger and at a better level here than in the States and Australia).
Whilst I don't know for sure, I suspect the big tabletennis asian countries where there is a good structure in place (China, Japan, Korea) work in the same way, where talent is found structurally.