Even for people who have considerable talent/experience there is often a peak window of opportunity for leaving and if you miss it then it can become a lot mor

Even for people who have considerable talent/experience there is often a peak window of opportunity for leaving and if you miss it then it can become a lot more difficult afterward. Putting yourself out into the job market is difficult, and risky. A lot of people work paycheck to paycheck so any disruption to that whatsoever is a risk. Working crunch constantly also burns you out, depriving you of time, energy, and motivation to seek other jobs. You can also get stuck in trying to rationalize your situation. It's super easy to think "this isn't so bad" because you get to work in an office instead of out digging ditches or whatever, because you get to work on "cool stuff you love", because you get to spend all day working alongside a bunch of "cool/fun people" and friends, and so on. And you may not notice the exact point at which each of your justifications top being true, there may be no one glaring tipping point that pushes you to look elsewhere for work.