On the one hand, if you’re gonna spend your energy managing infrastructure and repeatedly fixing technical debt you might as well get paid for it. On the other, at least this way you don’t have to deal with personality clashes and stupid ‘culture’ bs.
It's basically what someone commented earlier on another front page post. Software engineers aren't paid to write software. They're paid to deal with everything else that gets in the way of them writing the software.
The point isn't that anyone could do it, but that many of those who can already willingly program for free in many scenarios. Thus, they aren't paid big bucks for the ability to write software, but to deal with the BS of writing software in a company.
A few people here have talked about indie mobile app development as an approach that's working for them, just making and selling small utility apps on Google Play or the Apple App Store.
