This is so true, I feel like I have to justify to people what I'm doing with my life and why it's important and even necessary, which I wouldn't have had to do

This is so true, I feel like I have to justify to people what I'm doing with my life and why it's important and even necessary, which I wouldn't have had to do if I stayed in my physics PhD program. It's actually rather depressing, to be honest. There's nothing spectacular about writing code for apps which I wouldn't even use and which will probably flop within a year. But when I was a student, I felt like what I was doing was actually important. Writing apps and websites for people who will end up using time and money on them feels so unimportant in that "Oh, do you really wanna be selling sugar water for the rest of your life?" kind of way.