<story><title>I Can&apos;t Do Anything for Fun Anymore; Every Hobby Is an Attempt to Make Money</title><url>https://www.bennettnotes.com/post/making-money-out-of-every-hobby/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>amrrs</author><text>Does it have to be mutually exclusive? I mean, Can a hobby that we enjoy to have fun not also make money?&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s the relationship is unidirectional - do something for fun and if it makes money then it&amp;#x27;s well and good. Why to drop that just because it makes money (which isn&amp;#x27;t the original motive).</text></item><item><author>pmlnr</author><text>Social pressure on this is also ridiculous. Every time you start doing things, even if you actually stick to it as a hobby to make you happy, people, inc. family, will go &amp;quot;but you could make money out of this&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t fall for it. Most of us will not be able to do money from art, from photography, from aikido. Enjoy it, do it for your own sake, to balance your life.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TeMPOraL</author><text>The article highlights how trying to make money can quickly and thoroughly poison your hobby. The golden quote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;“Hmm…I want to write a book. I would really love to write a sappy romance novel because I think they’re so fun to write. But I need to turn it into profit, so I should do market research and see what’s trending and build off that. Self-help is big, let’s try to focus on that, even though I personally hate self-help books.”&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Note the change. &amp;quot;I really want to write a romance novel. I did market research. Self-help sells better. I&amp;#x27;ll write self-help then.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Following this thinking, you&amp;#x27;ll end up doing something you hate (and probably produce a barely sellable garbage). Hobby is about a thing (&amp;quot;I want to write a romance novel&amp;quot;). Making money is about money, and the thing is only means to an end (&amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;ll write whatever sells best, and maybe I should reconsider whether I can do something else than writing for even more money.&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d argue that even in professional life, this kind of thinking taken to the extreme is poison, and part of what ruins our societies and the planet. That is, companies which are really indifferent to what they&amp;#x27;re doing, and only focused on whether they can make money on it.&lt;p&gt;(One could argue that this is how market economy is supposed to work - don&amp;#x27;t think for yourself, don&amp;#x27;t feel for yourself, just do what the Market tells you to. We can see both good and bad consequences of that thinking all around us.)</text></comment>
<story><title>I Can&apos;t Do Anything for Fun Anymore; Every Hobby Is an Attempt to Make Money</title><url>https://www.bennettnotes.com/post/making-money-out-of-every-hobby/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>amrrs</author><text>Does it have to be mutually exclusive? I mean, Can a hobby that we enjoy to have fun not also make money?&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s the relationship is unidirectional - do something for fun and if it makes money then it&amp;#x27;s well and good. Why to drop that just because it makes money (which isn&amp;#x27;t the original motive).</text></item><item><author>pmlnr</author><text>Social pressure on this is also ridiculous. Every time you start doing things, even if you actually stick to it as a hobby to make you happy, people, inc. family, will go &amp;quot;but you could make money out of this&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t fall for it. Most of us will not be able to do money from art, from photography, from aikido. Enjoy it, do it for your own sake, to balance your life.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bad_user</author><text>Because by sharing your work, especially if you charge money, you’ll start feeling the pressure ... to improve, to support your customers, to react to your competition.&lt;p&gt;This is actually the reason for why many open source developers burn out, even if they aren’t making any money, which is tragic.&lt;p&gt;And you might say that you’ll not fall for it. Well good luck with that.&lt;p&gt;In my experience the minute you share your work with others, that’s when it becomes slightly less fun and it’s all downhill from there.</text></comment>