> What's wrong with making something cool and functional (if not "useful"), even if just for yourself, without any profit motive or plan to turn it into some huge business?

The problem I've had is two-fold.

1. I'm making amazing things (from my perspective) but nobody is paying me for it. I have many friends like this. We're older, very senior engineers with decades of experience and a love of computers/computer science. And we're building the platforms and tools we always wanted to exist. Summoning them into existence.

And nobody is going to pay us a single cent for it.

That's fine, until your roof needs replacing or your AC unit dies, like mine did.

"Dismissing the long list of projects" may in fact be a result of this.

What we have now with these tools is the ability to do more projects than ever, and the result is the marginal value of each of the projects is dropping like a rock.

2. Given the choice between attending meat-space issues and making these things, guess what I choose?

That's a me-shaped problem, I know, but I think it reflects the personality of a lot of people on this forum.

I feel like I'm on a roller coaster, and am simultaneously on the leading edge of being able to do more than ever while the value of all that "more" plummets plummet plummets.

You can do more than ever and unless you're independently wealthy (or incredibly well connected) it will go nowhere at all.

Also half the joy of writing code was having other people use it.

When everyone is a conjurer with a staff, nobody is going to care about what you just brought into existence. Build it and they won't come.