This might sound condescending, but it is a good point. Anyone can be a test user, you don't need to formally hire people with a contract etc (unless your work is contractually classified, but that's a whole other bag of beans). You can ask colleagues from other departments, people at a coffee shop, friends etc.
It depends on the userbase. I write medical imaging software intended to be used by MDs, and can’t just ask a random person at a coffeshop to try to establish a certain cancer diagnosis using our software. Finding candidates that have time for usability testing in that target group can be quite a challenge.
Yup, this one. If I spend three hours doing ux testing the boss will be like, "Is that necessary? How much time did you spend doing that?" Lol someday when I'm the VP of engineering it'll be different, but not today.
