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?
223 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 256 ms ] threadMaking money from a creative project can add spice to it the same way that gambling on sports adds to the enjoyment. It also means you can buy whatever equipment you want for your hobby (e.g. think how many $1000s you could spend on photography gear.)
Myself I have an art/crafting/photography project that I'd like to sell some work from because getting other people interested enough in what I make to pay for it would be validation that I'm on the right track.
White water kayaking, surf, rock climbing, hiking, road and mountain biking, travelling, playing guitar, bass, piano and singing. Playing chess, lots of random stuff with my kids. None of them I take remotely seriously.
If I back off a bit at work I might even enjoy programming again in my spare time!
In an era where the middle class is rapidly shrinking, decades of reckless monetary policy are producing generationally-high inflation, and people's lifestyles are deflating, I think a lot of people are either trying to outrun the treadmill of inflation out of desperation, clinging to the fleeting lifestyle of cheap gas, cheap air travel, cheap housing, cheap cars, etc.
This is why minimalism offers so much happiness, and room to start practicing hobbies for hobbies' sake again.
Desire is the root of suffering.
I feel this might be the biggest factor. Hobbies were one of major ways to deal with boredom and mundaneness of life. Nowadays, there's endless content online, shows, video games, restaurants, concerts, travel destinations, gadgets that people can consume and basically never feel bored.
Personally, I've seen my peers (by both profession and age) stop participate in activities that don't have an immediate reward, the only exception they make is if there's a long term financial reward. Odd.
In order to gain passive income, you must leech off someone else's work product. So in addition to not working yourself, you reduce the incentive for others to work by taking what could have been their wages.
The obsession with "Passive Income" is what is killing the United States and western economies. Capitalism only works when bad investing is punished and the investors contribute value to society by selecting productive and useful occupations for the labor force. In the current system, investors instead act primarily as leeches/parasites that are killing off the labor force.
There are too many governmental laws "protecting investors" that need to be eliminated, because they allow idiots to remain members of the investor class. If you are too dumb to recognize a ponzi scheme, then you don't need to be controlling society's capital and should be relegated to working class.
The idea of investing in the stock market as a whole and the creation of regulations that have made that viable are killing off the labor force in general.
Things like fractional reserve banking, the stock market, these are actually all a way to increase liquidity. A forcing function so that people do not sit on cash and instead let it flow back through the economy. Hardly parasitic/leeching, it's actually fueling the engine of our economy.
You bet they are not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
I started writing tweets with Ruby tips and engaging with people for sometime and I've noticed most people tend to find a way to monetize their activity. I only do it for the pleasure of learning with the community. I don't care about writing ebooks or making people pay for things they don't need.
But I can definitely conclude that on the internet, most people are looking to make big bucks. But have you tried going climbing or doing outdoor activities? There is always plenty of amateurs that never dream of becoming a professional climber or anything like that.
Also depends on where you live, but I live in Europe and here you see people having hobbies and doing random stuff everywhere you go, people just drinking a coffee and staring at the sky.
It could be that this is what you need. Disconnect.
And they're everywhere.
Such hobbies are probably the hardest to monetize, short of doing paid reviews. So I'm not too surprised that clubs built around that are low pressure when compared to hobbies that produce physical artifacts.
So I made her website and she tried making a business out of it, ruined the hobby for her forever.
People want to get out of the rate race because they understand that they are trading their valuable and unique time on earth to perpetuate a rather unsatisfying and miserable existence.
Regardless a lot of hobbies bring us joy as they’re free from the often brutal realities of our financial system and incentives. Once you cross that line it changes the perception of that interest for a lot of folks.
In the end nothing really compares to just doing my regular job in tech but it’s fun to dream of making a huge profit selling home made sauces or whatever.
The sports and hobby industries are huge for a reason. People do ALL KINDS of stuff all over the world for fun. Seriously, the diversity is enormous. If you feel like people aren't having hobbies then something is very very skewed in your perspective.
It's a delight when I come across a personal site that goes in depth about something, and has no ads or donation begging.
Edit: and my friends generally do not suggest I monetize my creative hobbies :)
That would have been around 2010 or so. Since then it has felt like the entire Internet, from Youtube and Twitch all the way down to Patreon and Gofundme, has turned into a big tip jar.
It's sad how in the US people are too busy paying medical bills that they don't have time to drink coffee anymore :(
But seriously, I truly wish serious money would be left out of sports. Yes I know pros need that to train (and buy their yachts/ferraris in certain fields), but I would be extremely happy to see sports being performed on lower level just like first olympics were, but done by people out of pure passion for it, not chasing sponsors / desperately trying to get views. It just degrades whole idea.
Thus I completely ignore all major sports since once you look at it via that sort of lens, you can't go back and its a sad sight anytime. I know I am a minority with this, but hey its way more interesting to stay out of sheepish crowds anyway.
Essentially this. I'm a software engineer in the U.S. And here are some of the places & situations I've been in where I've come across other software engineers (as discovered through simply chatting up random strangers)
- At anime conventions
- At a martial arts school
- At an art showing in a Middle Eastern-themed cafe
- At in-the-park social events
- At wine-and-cheese tastings
You find people where they spend their time. If you're visiting websites that cater to try-hard indie hustlers, you'll be surrounded there by try-hard indie hustlers.
On the flip side, if you're going out and _doing_ actual hobbies, you'll be surrounded by people who go out and do actual hobbies. Some of them might even share your same career choices.
I'm a software professional. My hobbies are fountain pens, chess, and Go (the game, not the language). Going to a pen show I meet people from vastly different career paths, including those who make a living in the orbit of the hobby.
Appreciating/critiquing art at an art show--or attending a certain style of social event on a monthly basis--certainly requires more active participation than spending time in a theater.
And if you doubt what sort of time investment an anime fan would require in keeping up with their hobby, take a look at much material someone would have to keep up with in just a three-month period alone: https://myanimelist.net/anime/season
Interesting. I actually sniff at that idea :) For me, watching movies is a pasttime activity, similar to say scrolling your phone. A differentiation between pasttime activity and a hobby for me is that hobby requires some level of effort.
I don't think that's true, not even just for bias towards the US, and not even if we correct for bias towards just the subset of people who are on Twitter/ social media.
As to "monetize their activity", really we have to define what that is and isn't. Say someone does ice-skating and spends ~$1000/yr on it and posts things with affiliate links where they get a tiny amount of revenue, well is that "monetizing their activity" or not? Most would say it isn't. Not compared to old-school "monetizing" like teaching ice-skating classes for $20 cash to kids. And definitely not compared to sponsored Olympic hopefuls who need to get $30++K/yr from their teens, just to stay in the game.
In the last decade I started meeting lots of wannabe influencers and affiliates, most with small followings and near-zero revenues. Is that "monetizing"? I'd say no.
> on the internet, most people are looking to make big bucks
No they're not. Mystified at this claim. Lotta people talk about it, very few achieve it (again depends on how you define it, e.g. "enough to quit the day job and live comfortably purely off internet-based revenues"). Noone audits their claims, right? And they have huge incentives to make false or exaggerated claims.
I don't even think you can clearly define which subset of people is "on the internet" and which isn't; for example, realtors, car dealers, even yoga instructors, tree-surgeons and vets often have websites (and social media), are they doing business "on the internet"? Most would say not really.
I think hard data would help prove/disprove this claim. For example, how many full-time arbitrageurs (resellers) are there on eBay, Amazon zShops and couponing sites? as opposed to just doing it as a side-hustle?
I strongly suspect there's a severe bias towards influencers talking about stuff that doesn't happen (think: Douglas Adams novels), just like the majority of people who claim to be realtors (at the end of every boom cycle, hundreds of thousands of hopefuls get an RE license) have never sold a property, or come close to selling a property. I guess realty is the ultimate 0/1 outcome, and it's easy to ask a wannabe realtor for a list of properties they've sold, hence it's easy to verify 80+% of them have no sales.
I agree with thiago_fm that the OP needs to spend time off "the internet" (more specifically: the influencer side of social media), all the hype and bragging and people relentlessly talking about themselves and unverified claims will pollute your thought process and sense of calm and adequacy.
I doubt that's true. I certainly would.
Curious to see other people's responses.
I think the term "monetize" has been debased to almost meaninglessness.
I agree with the other guy. If you're trying to make money, you are monetizing, regardless of whether it's actually profitable.
But even just conceptually framing your hobbies as something that could bring in revenue can change how you approach things, and probably not for the better in terms of enjoyment or stress relief.
By that token, Girl Scouts selling cookies is 'monetizing' their hobby. It would feel weird to retrospectively apply 'monetize' back into the early 20th century or beyond (prior to the advent of modern newspapers and advertising).
> But even just conceptually framing your hobbies as something that could bring in revenue can change how you approach things, and probably not for the better in terms of enjoyment or stress relief.
Totally agree. And yes framing is a large aspect to it. Like if people who buy lottery tickets every time they stop for gas reframed themselves as 'investors'. Seems unhealthy to have to reframe relaxation activities as 'potential revenue generation'.
> It could be that this is what you need. Disconnect.
I can second all of this.
I feel like I'm seeing more people fall into the internet trap, wherein they slowly slide into a chronically offline lifestyle and lose touch with the real world.
Eventually, they surround themselves with more and more chronically online people who are in a similar bubble, making their situation feel common or normal.
As this all slowly consumes their time outside of work, they begin to unintentionally withdraw from real-world friends and activities. The constant strain of processing the worlds' news and social media drama leaves them too exhausted to go anywhere, but while at home the easiest thing they can do is reach for more social media comfort (I include HN in that social media definition, as we're here socializing in the comments).
It is possible to break the cycle, but it takes a bit of a push to get it started. Simply forcing yourself to reach out to old friends or go somewhere to socialize and pick up a new hobby is an easy first step. Or just set a goal to step outside for 30 minutes each day to do anything that isn't related to work or being online.
Background: I work full-time as a computer programmer to support myself, my wife, and three children.
Hobbies…
I collect and digitally archive MCA DiscoVision laserdiscs. I currently possess one of the three largest collections in the world.
In addition to this I digitally archive anything (books, brochures, and other paperwork) related to the early development of the Laserdisc format from MCA DiscoVision, Philips, et al.
I am also involved in film and video digital restoration projects, but not as much nowadays as I once was. I started an online community dedicated to 35 & 16mm film restoration back in 2015 which is, thankfully, still alive & kicking despite me having passed the torch several years back.
I've considered creating a YouTube channel to help fund things, but my interests are too niche to turn a profit.
It was one of those technologies that was way ahead of its time. They just could not get the density on the disk such that it would make sense longer term but given people still had records, they fit into these collections as-in given their similar form factor. They sported better picture quality and (debatably) better audio.
They also were natively able to produce an analog signal (RCA video and component out) as format is not actually totally digital.
They are just super cool piece of tech from a blip in history but they did set the stage for all our compact disk formats we use today.
It ushered in the wave of technological change to come. The first prototypes for CD were DiscoVision discs! http://www.blam1.com/discovision/Pioneer_PCM.htm
What really excites me is that it's the world's most obscure treasure hunt.
Titles with an odd number of sides had a random one chosen at the pressing plant to even it out which was then lacquered over. Removing the lacquer with isopropyl alcohol sometimes reveals a side from a title which was never released.
This YouTuber covers an example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQZGe3r4VqQ
Working in a company is a massive PITA. In a lot of western countries society is so polarised that every interaction with another human being is a risk of hearing some inane bullshit or being crucified for thinking differently.
Even the hiring process is a complete ridiculous farce.
When you get hired that agile crap is pushed down everybody's throat and, while many comply without complaining much, I'm sure they're all dead inside.
It's no wonder to me that more people than ever want to escape the rat race, especially in software.
We realise the power of automation and what we can aim for and we want a slice of the cake, so we don't have to be part of all this BS any longer.
Why I prefer making useless stuff https://austinhenley.com/blog/makinguselessstuff.html
Programming as play https://austinhenley.com/blog/programmingasplay.html
When I worked 40 hours per week often I didn't have energy to practice most days.
Same. I blame my brain's need to chase the dopamine rush.
And making money off something you love is not, by itself, a bad thing. The issue is that making money off a hobby you love will often kill that love, because the hustle requires a lot of extra work that is related to making money, not the hobby.
Just ask almost any self-employed contractor how much time goes into tasks that aren't billable (i.e. the hobby).
I do woodworking as a hobby (and restore old woodworking machines as an actual side hustle to fund my addiction to buying cherry lumber). This is why I absolutely do not turn down requests for furniture or other woodworking projects. I just price them so absurdly high that the return is ridiculous, or that people just politely decline. For example, I was recently asked to make a shelf for an acquaintance. I priced the single floating shelf at $930. That's about $30 worth of materials, and three to five hours worth of work depending on what finish I choose. That 5 hours of my free time absolutely is worth $900 to me.
As an aside, if anyone is looking for a very vintage, single phase 7.5hp, 24" jointer, I have one for sale.
Man this is the kind of thing you have to include a location for ;)
It's a beautiful machine. It's a JT Towsley 24" jointer - the best I can guess is that it's from 1930-35 or so; there isn't a lot of information about that company anywhere.
It's somewhere around 2300 lbs - everything is solid cast iron (subsequently, I have retrofit some heavy casters because it was so unbelievably hard to move without them). It used to be 3 phase direct drive, but the shop I got it from gutted the old motor and set it as a belt and pulley drive to a smaller motor on the base. I swapped the little motor with a new Leeson 7.5hp. I painted it and replaced all of the bearings for safety sake (with new - old stock - American made bearings that matched the originals, btw), but other than that everything was in amazing shape. It has a massive 4 blade cutterhead with huge new blades the man that owned it put on it. This thing is amazing.
It sat in the corner of a cabinet making shop up the road from me for something like 80 years, until the owner died. His wife was going to have the local junker haul it out. It was the cabinetmaker's pride and joy. It had surface rust and needed to be repainted/all the bearings replaced, but otherwise it was like a brand new machine.
It currently lives in Illinois at a buddy's house while he waits for his own jointer to come in- it's his daily driver right now. But this thing is worth the drive to pick up. I've only ever seen one this size and quality in person, and I've never seen one for sale on the public market. I know I'm biased because I'm selling it, but it's just such a bad-ass old piece of iron.
I considered putting a helical head on it, and I contacted a couple of companies for quotes on custom heads. They're pretty reasonable (for what you get), but the companies are like 6-8 months out on custom orders and byrd won't even respond.
Anyway. This thing is amazing. I love old machinery, and this piece is super cool. The thought that went into making something that big also very easy to adjust and work with is just amazing.
That's a wild coincidence! Was that the October edition? I would like to see those articles. This was a project, and I can tell you that learning from someone else would've been super helpful when moving that much cast iron around.
The hardest part was re-leveling and ensuring the tables were co-planar when re-assembling it. You have 8 level screws, and something like 60 set screws for the blades. It was a fiddly process!
I cook dinner for 1-2 hours 3 times a week. I take long drives on the weekend. And sometimes I record music. I was collecting new kinds of plants for a while but my cats keep destroying them.
Just because there are people shouting about side gigs and "hustling" (oh, how I dislike that word at this point), doesn't mean that's actually what everyone's doing.
Just do what you want to. :)
Inflation has risen and minimum wage hasn't kept up with it. Unions are dead in the US. Boomers got their college education paid by the GI bill, Millennials got their college education paid by excruciatingly huge loans that are impossible to get out from under even by bankruptcy. Some of those have been forgiven by the federal government, with the utmost reluctance. Keeping up with the bills is not easy.
You can afford to have a hobby if you're making enough money to not worry about paying your bills. If you're constantly on the verge of going broke then yes, every single thing you do ends up being examined for its money-making possibilities.
And then when you do, you have to deal with the fact that the social-media giants that are where you have to go to tell people about whatever hobby you're trying to turn into a side hustle are immensely reluctant to let anyone divert eyeballs off their sites; they'll actively hide posts with words like "patreon" or "commissions", or links to your own site where you can get people to look at your stuff and consider giving you money. Oh yes and those social sites are of course also highly optimized for addiction, so your own scarce free time is colonized by mindlessly scrolling FacebookTwitterTiktokInstagramEtc and not really having a good time but being too amused on a moment-to-moment basis to get up and do something that's actually fun.
tl;dr: Yes.
Anyone know how to look up what percentage of college attendees used the GI bill over the years? It seems like in our age of big data, this presumably public information wouldn't be so hard to get an answer for. Since the overwhelming majority of baby boomers never attended college, I could see the fraction using the GI bill going either way.
I personally like to play with lua mods for surviving mars, garden, hike, woodworking, I don't know if reading is a hobby, let's say pastime.
With art, I would imagine people find it useless without sharing. So you feel like you need to publish or get into a gallery etc
Turn off your brain and paint away. Doesn't have to be a Rembrandt but something interesting may come out and most important you enter flow state. I'm a prolific painter and there's a bit of problem solving involved but that usually solves itself by working on other pieces and solutions ensue by themselves when you return to problematic works. Always works out for me. I never work on one piece at a time but 10 or 20 without any outside pressure. The more you do spend time 'doing' the better you get without being frustrated/stuck thinking about it. Good luck
I think this is a prevalent phenomenon because most people don't actually have hobbies if you disqualify food and entertainment. Some of them will have a passing interesting in something, but unless they spend some money on it, that can hardly be called a hobby. People who have actual hobbies probably understand why another person doesn't want to make a career out of their hobby, but those who have no hobbies likely don't get it and see the hobby as the seed for some kind of dream job.
The way society views hobbies has gotten worse due to things like hustle culture, the artificial celebritydom of social media, and the devaluement of being hands-on with things that comes with living in a highly industrialized society.
That's a really interesting point I never considered. I guess people with no interest in an area would certainly be more likely to see the financial side of things rather than the actual... well hobby part. Also gonna admit I've been guilty of that myself, and have only quite recently realised that it may have been a tad overbearing.
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!
> 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.
Maybe it should be, but I don't think that reflects what the broader culture believes. Add to the fact, you can't reliably determine the threshold at which something is active enough.
> Add to the fact, you can't reliably determine the threshold at which something is active enough.
Yeah, it's ultimately up to the individual to determine whether something is a hobby. There are some standards we can have around the shared utility of that word, though. Pretty much anything can have a capacity for being a hobby, though some can be more dubious than others.
You might also disqualify hobbies you don't consider a hobby. If I go for a run every saturday morning, is running a hobby? Or am I just a fitness freak? I think sometimes what folks do 'for fun' is either dismissed, or considered something you kind of have to do / should do anyway.
Yes, I absolutely agree. I wasn't referring to those people, but I can understand how it would have come off that way.
What I'm saying is that if one doesn't engage with an experience, it's really hard to call said thing a hobby. Binge watching shows, for instance, is only participatory in that the person pays an entrance fee and that they keep their eyes pointed at the screen. Same for eating; eating lots of good food doesn't equate to being a hobby but is more of a mere activity or an interest. But learning recipes, learning to smoke meat, etc., now we're talking about engaging in an activity rather than passively accepting sensory stimuli.
> You might also disqualify hobbies you don't consider a hobby. If I go for a run every saturday morning, is running a hobby? Or am I just a fitness freak? I think sometimes what folks do 'for fun' is either dismissed, or considered something you kind of have to do / should do anyway.
It's also in the eye of the beholder. I can't really tell an individual what is or isn't their hobby. Sensibly, not everything a human being does can be a hobby, and I think engaging in an activity with some kind of feedback loop is a sign of a hobby. Investing in that activity is also a sign of a hobby. Running can certainly be a hobby IMO because it takes an investment of time and effort, and people who run or perform exercise are usually paying at least some attention to their performance. Running merely because one thinks they have to run, on the other hand, doesn't seem like much of a hobby, but a change in mindset could instantaneously change said running from a chore to a hobby.
Where are you seeing this?
> So is there a reason for that?
Selection bias? People who aren't doing that won't be visible to you, so...
I have several hobbies that no one will ever see, because I'm not interested in sharing them. By your "analysis", that means I have no hobbies.
Make your hobbies what you want them to be.
so much more fun to be moderately tech wealthy in an entertainment hub