lmueongoqx
Born on April 07, 2021•444 Karma
While reading the impressive amount of responses this thread got I realized I do enjoy helping other developers and generally keeping stuff working. I still end up spending nights tinkering with my .vimrc, it's not like I can't watch a computer anymore without puking.
Good luck to you too !
Excellent advice.
I love how HN still ends up thriving for perfection. If I compile all the comments in this thread I'll have the best optimized way to become the ultimate do-nothing slacker piece of crap.
Just call yourself a company and then you'll be called "an efficient business". ;)
Be still my heart
I'm only trying to optimize by reducing the time spent working and thinking about work, which I never see bringing me anything else than money.
Wish you success in that endeavour!
I hope you find a way to chill through life.
Is your hobby/"passions (which are not monetizable)" expensive? And are you 100% certain they are not monetizable?
In today's world, I have yet to see something which is not monetizable. Unless you are referring to something which is too competitive - even that can be monetized....though monetization itself might require too much work which goes against your requirement so I understand.
I learned that once I try to monetize my hobbies, there’s a very real risk that they become stressful and no longer fun and invigorating. Sometimes it’s best to keep hobbies as just hobbies.
Or, at least, make sure you have some hobbies that will only ever stay hobbies. Nothing wrong with trying to do monetize something you love, just don’t let it be the only thing you love to do, so you still have something when you have a stressful day doing the first thing.
So I picked up sleight of hand card tricks a few years ago as something to do that had nothing to do with computers and last year I started to learn to play the guitar. I have no intention of ever trying to monetize either of these hobbies. They're purely for fun, to relax.
I have other hobbies too, but too many revolve around computers or tech and after a long day in front of the screen, its good to get away and do something completely different.
For OP: it's OK to not want to monetize everything you do, even if those things might potentially be monetizable (which most things are, as the parent comment mentioned) - past some point, the incremental value of really, truly enjoying more of your time can have way more value than even fairly large amounts of additional money.
Where that point lies exactly is a matter of debate, and probably depends greatly on how you place value on intangible experiences vs. tangible things. From experience, many people in the tech industry are well past this point but don't realize it, largely because we have a cognitive bias towards comparison with those around us. (Also, the above framing suggests strongly that we can learn to change where that point is for ourselves.)
Plenty of artists out there who love making art, and yet their art is simply not sellable. For many people this would be a source of disappointment, but for a lucky few they may realize they just enjoy creating art for its own sake, and not to sell it.
This is the attitude that causes people like the author of The Great Suspender to sell out and betray the trust of everyone.
https://github.com/greatsuspender/thegreatsuspender/issues/1...
I believe that uBlock Origin fundamentally cannot be monetized without violating the spirit of the extension itself. It's meant to fight back against predatory monetization practices. We can only hope that gorhill will never believe the mantra that anything can provide a source of revenue if you just put your mind to it.
A topic like chess might take 60 hours a week of video editing over the course of years just to get to 4k/month in income IF you beat the nearest 10,000 competitors who are trying to make similar channels.
Really not a realistic option for most people.
What about working on free software without compromises like ads or dual licensing (which does not usually help anyway)?