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> The most egregious thing you can do with any activity is daydream about how you can make money off of it. That’s the quickest way to optimize for the wrong th

> The most egregious thing you can do with any activity is daydream about how you can make money off of it. That’s the quickest way to optimize for the wrong things and suck the fun right out of it. Most likely you will stop doing the activity almost immediately, so save the money-making schemes for work. I disagree wholeheartedly with this statement. It implies several things that aren't true: * That a hobby done for profit that can't also be done for fun. * That a hobby for profit can't start as a profit-making venture, but turn into a passion. * That work should be the only route to wealth. * That optimizing for wealth can't go hand-in-hand with fun. I despise the adage that a hobby is only a hobby if you aren't making money from it. I'm passionate about fantasy/sci-fi miniature building/painting, terrain modelling, and prop making. I love the expression of taking a universe that exists within the realms of novels and movies, and bringing it to the real world - to scale or in miniature. I design STLs/CAD models for 3D printing, scratch together terrain boards for people to play games on, paint miniatures any hour I get free, machine parts for various outfits and armaments, and spend hours fantasising about what universe I'm going to delve into next. None of that would be possible if I didn't monetise the process. Most of what I build, I sell. If I didn't, I would neither be able to afford the hobby nor store the stuff I make. It would end up in a landfill. Parts of the hobby I took up explicitly because they demand higher prices when I sell it, but now they're some of the things I'm most passionate about. Realistically, I'd love to do it as a full-time venture, but the semiconductor industry pays well and I'm not a famous maker so couldn't make it work - as the article states well enough. To suggest that hobbies can't both be fun and profitable though is a philosophy I think should be quashed.

Arcanum-XIII 2y ago
And after a while, your hobby if physical will take space for things that are done, and that you don't need anymore. So why not resell them and fund the next steps ?
- Aromasin 2y ago
  You raise another good point; is all monetization of a hobby the same? No, of course not. It's such a blanket statement to say "Save the money-making schemes for work". Plenty of people have collecting hobbies that almost go hand-in-hand with monetization. Stamp or coin collecting comes to the top of my mind. Value is discussed almost constantly in those communities, and people are forever uptrading their collection to become more valuable over time; it's an investment as much as anything else, and while you will seldom make money there's always an element of minimizing loss. Same with cars, video games, cards, records, and comic books. We collect them because we think they hold value, join communities that also think they hold value, and use money as a scale to judge what value it holds.

Arcanum-XIII 2y ago

And after a while, your hobby if physical will take space for things that are done, and that you don't need anymore. So why not resell them and fund the next steps ?

Aromasin 2y ago
You raise another good point; is all monetization of a hobby the same? No, of course not. It's such a blanket statement to say "Save the money-making schemes for work". Plenty of people have collecting hobbies that almost go hand-in-hand with monetization. Stamp or coin collecting comes to the top of my mind. Value is discussed almost constantly in those communities, and people are forever uptrading their collection to become more valuable over time; it's an investment as much as anything else, and while you will seldom make money there's always an element of minimizing loss. Same with cars, video games, cards, records, and comic books. We collect them because we think they hold value, join communities that also think they hold value, and use money as a scale to judge what value it holds.