>> It feels like every time someone gets into a new field now, there's always the expectation they'll 'go pro' or turn it into a day job. Every open source proj

>> It feels like every time someone gets into a new field now, there's always the expectation they'll 'go pro' or turn it into a day job. Every open source project or website gets treated as the potential basis for a company, every creative seems to think they'll become a full time artist or creator, every writer wants a book deal or mailing list or whatever... This sounds like "Availability bias" to me. You're judging this phenomenon based on what you see, and what you see is likely to be the loudest people who are trying to get attention, and succeed to some extent. You aren't seeing the person who does hobbies and tells no one (does it just for themselves) and hence you're assuming they aren't there. Lots of people write blogs because they enjoy writing. They dont pitch it or try to become influencers or try to gain followers. Similarly I take amazing photos that rarely go beyond my phone. The photos are for me. I know someone that wrote seven books, non published! I post photos to IG but i dont stuff it with hashtags -- because i really dont care if I get a hundred likes.