Ask HN: Do people not have hobbies anymore?

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… And while there’s nothing wrong with that, it feels like people have lost sight of what hobbies can be, and forgotten that something can just be a way to relax or destress instead. Hell, if you create anything, everyone will seemingly tell you how much money you should be making from it, and encourage you to monetise it in some way or another. So is there a reason for that? Has the financial situation forced everyone into always looking for a side hustle or way to ‘escape the rat race’? Or is there some other explanation for why everything seems to need a financial reason to exist now?
Story Published at: October 26, 2022 at 02:45PM