Yeah but the counterpoint to your position is making $40k a year is some peoples busting their ass, peak of career earning, wage.
Not everyone with technical skills to make something lives in the USA and pulls the high wage (yes $40k is a very very high wage) that you have.
If you have not broken $15k a year for the last decade, and had spent that decade busting your ass, working nights, weekends, etc and had managed to pull yourself into the, by comparison, fabulously paid world of $35k (myself but not USA based) would you now be considering working nights?
Another decade of not having a life, working 10-14 hours a day, for ???
maybe you might make something someone will use?
I don't understand this.
I would expect petty crime to have a better risk/reward profile than this.
Yeah, I probably would, because I've worked as hard as anyone for the last 15 years. I'm underpaid. 40k isn't poverty around here, but it's not a lot of money. I just don't need or want much else other than freedom, I enjoy learning and building, and if I build anything, I want to build it in my home, not somewhere else. I think you can appreciate that.
Doing what you love where you live is not insanity, it's what the vast majority of people want.
Not everyone with technical skills to make something lives in the USA and pulls the high wage (yes $40k is a very very high wage) that you have.
If you have not broken $15k a year for the last decade, and had spent that decade busting your ass, working nights, weekends, etc and had managed to pull yourself into the, by comparison, fabulously paid world of $35k (myself but not USA based) would you now be considering working nights?
Another decade of not having a life, working 10-14 hours a day, for ???
maybe you might make something someone will use?
I don't understand this.
I would expect petty crime to have a better risk/reward profile than this.
What you describe is complete and utter insanity.