Comment by secstate
4 months ago
I think the awkward part of your first post is that you appear to start with a value judgement that tinkering is for poor people who's time is worthless. That's not remotely fair to either poor people, or rich people who like to tinker. No one's time is worthless. Not your time. Not mine. It's all just time.
Fair enough, and no I didn't mean to impinge time is worthless. It's not the value of time that changes, but the amount of it you have.
In a work context a shortage of time (more customers than you can handle) means you need to discriminate, which means you can't make everyone happy. Which usually means differentiating based on value. (Aka, you get more expensive. )
For personal time you also become more discerning. Spend time with spouse, or build another computer, or lie under a car etc. Life has more demands, so there are more choices.
Incidentally, one of those choices is to work less.
The tinkering never goes away, but I prefer to tinker in profitable areas now. (I get to tinker for work.)