> Because starting your own business is usually even more of a soul-crushing activity, with even less pay, for many years, if not forever.
According to the hustle porn version of startups, sure. But if you find a niche market, build a simple product, spread out the work with people you trust, and deliver consistently to your customers, you can own a large chunk of more revenue than you'll ever see renting your time out by the hour.
We all know "it doesn't have to be crazy at work", but starting a business doesn't have to be crazy either.
Therein lies the rub. If the market you find is too niche¹, then any product you produce for it will likely be unprofitable, so defining exactly what niche means in this context requires bounds.
So now it's a game of shopping around for the right niche market. If you're lucky, then you'll find one which aligns with what intrinsically motivates you. If not, then it'll be a grind to become enough of a SME in that niche market segment to produce a product which meets the needs of its participants.
I therefore argue that step 1 is to be a normal enough person to have some niche interests, but ones which are not so niche that you only share this interest with— at most —a few thousand other people.
[1] The owner of The Laserdisc Database, lddb.com, doesn't make enough solely from this venture to support himself.
Oh I didn't say finding a market building a product and knowing the right people to partner with is easy, but it's also not impossible. It certainly is not something that takes everything from you no matter what. You can approach it with any level of intensity you'd like.
While sustainable businesses are perfectly possible, you say that like the economy entitles you to it. Profitable businesses can suddenly turn unprofitable for a variety of reasons, from big things like macroeconomic conditions to stupid stuff like one of your suppliers having a factory fire or your products ending up completely lost in customs over a bureaucratic mixup.
Not everyone can start a business and guide it to success. And if they can, it can easily become the corporate work you were attempting to avoid.