> It has a lot to do with not understanding the other person's motivations. If a person's hobby doesn't interest you, but you can see the lucrative value of said hobby, one might be compelled to suggest making said hobby a career.
Yeah, this is a big annoyance to my wife. She does knitting, sewing, other fiber arts. When speaking to other non-crafty types, almost always the first thing they say is "you should sell your pieces!" or "can you make me X for $Y?" Her response is always a hard no. This is something she does for fun and to share with friends and family. It's not a job.
Similarly, I did programming as a hobby growing up. I turned it into a career, and now it's the last thing I want to do in my spare time. This was actually kind of a difficulty, I had to go find new things to do for fun. Now I do woodworking and guitar and spend very little time on computers at home!
My mom has the same problem. She got into wood carving, found she's really talented at it, has done some pieces on commission and gets paid extremely well when she does. But to her it's a hobby and not a job. My dad kind of knows this but still keeps suggesting she do things like keep social media accounts, etc., and to do things that would maximize her "business". Why he keeps doing this, I dunno. He's an engineer type so I think he also just gets satisfaction out of optimizing things. My mom would however like to just do it whenever she feels like it and only do so much commission work that she would be able to take her time on it and take vacations without being on the hook, and of course to still actually enjoy the craft without being concerned about making money or constantly improving efficiency (which is counter to artistry).
> Similarly, I did programming as a hobby growing up. I turned it into a career, and now it's the last thing I want to do in my spare time.
Yeah, it's hard to keep up. When I was a junior programmer making my own stuff and putting it on Github was really exciting. Now it's challenging to get the motivation to do it as a hobby even if I know I've got a good idea I want to work on. Once you get to senior level as a software engineer, a lot of the joy kind of disappears. Since seniors are looked to in order to solve the really hard problems, as well as clean up the worst messes, our brains just get exposed to the worst sides of programming and I think part of us realizes how much code is simply wasteful.
My sister in law does this stuff as a business. It’s a weird look to be honest. As family I know more than most. She grinds in a sweat shop room in her house. Never cooks, cleans, or helps with raising her kid unless it’s selling apparel for a sports league, scouts, etc. It’s different though, she’s addicted to the attention of it all and being a “small business owner”. Once I asked her some details on the operations and she’s earning the equivalent of $2/hr on her time invested and she’s been at it for like 15+ years, it’s weird.
Yeah, this is a big annoyance to my wife. She does knitting, sewing, other fiber arts. When speaking to other non-crafty types, almost always the first thing they say is "you should sell your pieces!" or "can you make me X for $Y?" Her response is always a hard no. This is something she does for fun and to share with friends and family. It's not a job.
Similarly, I did programming as a hobby growing up. I turned it into a career, and now it's the last thing I want to do in my spare time. This was actually kind of a difficulty, I had to go find new things to do for fun. Now I do woodworking and guitar and spend very little time on computers at home!