> only worth dealing with if one really needs an income, esp. considering the signal for prospective employers.

Is this not the purpose of a job? I've had 3 long-term jobs/contracts since the pandemic, for a total of 2.5/5 years, and that's a better rate of the prior 6 years before that. Idk what their story is, but I think it's pretty typical for people who've had stable careers for one reason or another to assume it's within someone's control how often or how long they're able to work for. Sure, sometimes you're just job hopping or intentionally taking risks on early startups, but if the job goes away—depending on many factors—the ability to turn around and get another one can take a laughable amount of time, and the awareness of the perception of "the signal for prospective employers" compounding that difficulty makes it harder the longer it takes.

I try not to think about it, but there's been numerous times where I've been a year or more out from losing a job due to layoffs or financials or whatever, and getting rejected by even the least desirable place in the 4th+ round of interviews, usually by that point shifting my energy from applying/interviewing to looking at trade school. Imo it's always been brutal out there if you don't know someone running a startup who'll hook it up right away.

In my personal experience, as of the start of my current job and every time prior, in 10 years I'd accumulated no savings, always draining it to nearly zero by the time I'd get the next one. Ain't pretty.