5 ms·

Does it have to be mutually exclusive? I mean, Can a hobby that we enjoy to have fun not also make money? Here's the relationship is unidirectional - do someth

by amrrs 8y ago

Does it have to be mutually exclusive? I mean, Can a hobby that we enjoy to have fun not also make money? Here's the relationship is unidirectional - do something for fun and if it makes money then it's well and good. Why to drop that just because it makes money (which isn't the original motive).

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bad_user 8y ago
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. This is actually the reason for why many open source developers burn out, even if they aren’t making any money, which is tragic. And you might say that you’ll not fall for it. Well good luck with that. 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.
- jfk13 8y ago
  > 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. Unfortunately, this is often true -- but there are exceptions. I've had a couple of projects where the experience has been almost entirely positive. There's a lot of satisfaction in seeing that something I designed and created purely to suit my needs has turned out to be used and appreciated by others as well.
- madengr 8y ago
  I have a program I created as a hobby, put on github, then it grew popular enough to need occasional support and updating. Sometimes I wish I did not put it out there. It can quickly become work instead of fun; work you are not paid for. Though if you accept donations for it, then you have an obligation to keep it going.
  - mrfusion 8y ago
    Just tell people to make pull requests. There’s nothing wrong with that.
    - alistairSH 8y ago
      He still has to review those requests. Depending on the quality of contributor, that might be MORE work!
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      Sadly that doesn't work out so well. Just look at the recent npm event-stream debacle for an example. An author didn't really want to deal with a library any more, someone came out and offered to maintain it, the original creator agreed and moved things over, and the new author added exploits to the code. Most of HN and other social media was lambasting the original creator for doing something so "careless". Many people wanted them to just shut it down when they were done with it, others wanted them to more carefully vet potential maintainers, still others said that shutting the project down would be irresponsible as there could be vulnerabilities found that need to be fixed. There really isn't a right answer, and with how social media sites feel these days with witch hunts and outrage flying around everywhere, I personally have shied away from open sourcing a few tools that I've created simply because I don't have the time or care to maintain them. The last thing I want is "social media" to collectively decide that I've made terrible mistakes that no sane programmer would ever make in their code, and that I deserve to never work in this industry again.
      - swiley 8y ago
        >Most of HN I'm part of HN, my general attitude here is that the maintainers of the consuming software are at fault. If you have so many dependencies (especially in javascript, hah) that you can't keep track of what's happening with them then either your scope is too big or you're just carelessly glueing things together because you can't be bothered to build sane things on your own. I understand using things like jasmine and one or two other big things, but at that point those big things are critical components of what you've built and you need to be paying close attention to them for the duration that you're responsible for the maintenance of the code. TL;DR: the fault is with the consumers for being careless, not the people who actually put work in.
pram 8y ago
It can then inadvertently turn into a second job. For some people that won’t be a problem, if they develop a true passion for their hobby then it might be a great outcome! However, for some people it might sap the original enjoyment they had. Now you’re concerned about profitability and maintaining your audience and market etc. Soon your mindless pastime is causing you stress and anxiety, which defeats the point.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
TeMPOraL 8y ago
The article highlights how trying to make money can quickly and thoroughly poison your hobby. The golden quote: > “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.” Note the change. "I really want to write a romance novel. I did market research. Self-help sells better. I'll write self-help then." Following this thinking, you'll end up doing something you hate (and probably produce a barely sellable garbage). Hobby is about a thing ("I want to write a romance novel"). Making money is about money, and the thing is only means to an end ("I'll write whatever sells best, and maybe I should reconsider whether I can do something else than writing for even more money."). I'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're doing, and only focused on whether they can make money on it. (One could argue that this is how market economy is supposed to work - don't think for yourself, don'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.)
- bluGill 8y ago
  Somebody needs to write self help books for the people who need them. That somebody should do a lot of boring research (note that I said should: the implication that they might not is intentional). Society would fall apart without people who clean sewers, take the trash, and many other tasks that are unpleasant. Maybe you are lucky enough to get paid well to do what you love. Maybe you are not willing to do some unpleasant job that would pay better than your own. Likely you are unable to do some jobs (lack of training or lack of physical ability). No matter what you do, and no matter what your abilities: there is some other job that you could do instead. The market economy works because it provides motivation for people to not do a job they would love and instead do something else.
  - rabidrat 8y ago
    This conversation is about hobbies. No one is cleaning sewers as a hobby (they wouldn't even let you!)
castlecrasher2 8y ago
Basically do whichever and whatever makes sense to you, for you.

by amrrs 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

bad_user 8y ago

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. This is actually the reason for why many open source developers burn out, even if they aren’t making any money, which is tragic. And you might say that you’ll not fall for it. Well good luck with that. 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.

jfk13 8y ago
> 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. Unfortunately, this is often true -- but there are exceptions. I've had a couple of projects where the experience has been almost entirely positive. There's a lot of satisfaction in seeing that something I designed and created purely to suit my needs has turned out to be used and appreciated by others as well.
madengr 8y ago
I have a program I created as a hobby, put on github, then it grew popular enough to need occasional support and updating. Sometimes I wish I did not put it out there. It can quickly become work instead of fun; work you are not paid for. Though if you accept donations for it, then you have an obligation to keep it going.
- mrfusion 8y ago
  Just tell people to make pull requests. There’s nothing wrong with that.
  - alistairSH 8y ago
    He still has to review those requests. Depending on the quality of contributor, that might be MORE work!
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    Sadly that doesn't work out so well. Just look at the recent npm event-stream debacle for an example. An author didn't really want to deal with a library any more, someone came out and offered to maintain it, the original creator agreed and moved things over, and the new author added exploits to the code. Most of HN and other social media was lambasting the original creator for doing something so "careless". Many people wanted them to just shut it down when they were done with it, others wanted them to more carefully vet potential maintainers, still others said that shutting the project down would be irresponsible as there could be vulnerabilities found that need to be fixed. There really isn't a right answer, and with how social media sites feel these days with witch hunts and outrage flying around everywhere, I personally have shied away from open sourcing a few tools that I've created simply because I don't have the time or care to maintain them. The last thing I want is "social media" to collectively decide that I've made terrible mistakes that no sane programmer would ever make in their code, and that I deserve to never work in this industry again.
    - swiley 8y ago
      >Most of HN I'm part of HN, my general attitude here is that the maintainers of the consuming software are at fault. If you have so many dependencies (especially in javascript, hah) that you can't keep track of what's happening with them then either your scope is too big or you're just carelessly glueing things together because you can't be bothered to build sane things on your own. I understand using things like jasmine and one or two other big things, but at that point those big things are critical components of what you've built and you need to be paying close attention to them for the duration that you're responsible for the maintenance of the code. TL;DR: the fault is with the consumers for being careless, not the people who actually put work in.

pram 8y ago

It can then inadvertently turn into a second job. For some people that won’t be a problem, if they develop a true passion for their hobby then it might be a great outcome! However, for some people it might sap the original enjoyment they had. Now you’re concerned about profitability and maintaining your audience and market etc. Soon your mindless pastime is causing you stress and anxiety, which defeats the point.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

TeMPOraL 8y ago

The article highlights how trying to make money can quickly and thoroughly poison your hobby. The golden quote: > “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.” Note the change. "I really want to write a romance novel. I did market research. Self-help sells better. I'll write self-help then." Following this thinking, you'll end up doing something you hate (and probably produce a barely sellable garbage). Hobby is about a thing ("I want to write a romance novel"). Making money is about money, and the thing is only means to an end ("I'll write whatever sells best, and maybe I should reconsider whether I can do something else than writing for even more money."). I'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're doing, and only focused on whether they can make money on it. (One could argue that this is how market economy is supposed to work - don't think for yourself, don'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.)

bluGill 8y ago
Somebody needs to write self help books for the people who need them. That somebody should do a lot of boring research (note that I said should: the implication that they might not is intentional). Society would fall apart without people who clean sewers, take the trash, and many other tasks that are unpleasant. Maybe you are lucky enough to get paid well to do what you love. Maybe you are not willing to do some unpleasant job that would pay better than your own. Likely you are unable to do some jobs (lack of training or lack of physical ability). No matter what you do, and no matter what your abilities: there is some other job that you could do instead. The market economy works because it provides motivation for people to not do a job they would love and instead do something else.
- rabidrat 8y ago
  This conversation is about hobbies. No one is cleaning sewers as a hobby (they wouldn't even let you!)

castlecrasher2 8y ago

Basically do whichever and whatever makes sense to you, for you.