I'm a writer by trade. I am routinely told by people on HN that writing is a worthless skill, that if I want to resolve my financial problems I should "get a real job" and I'm generally pissed all over.

Let me suggest that a first step would be to stop sneering at writers and telling them what total fucking losers they are for not being coders.

I briefly tried to get involved with Open Source. It went nowhere in part because of the enormous wall of contempt with which I am routinely met.

I'm a woman and people generally seem to feel that I should do things out of the goodness of my heart and not expect any benefit whatsoever in return. I have been met with open hostility for trying to figure out how to monetize my work, network professionally, etc.

If writers tend to skew female, that may also be a relevant issue to the problem space.

I've spent years desperately poor while people piss all over me for being poor and also piss all over the idea that I could possibly have anything of value to offer. I have six years of college. I was one of the top students of my graduating class. Etc.

As far as I can tell, sexism is a very large factor in my intractable poverty. For any other issue I have, I can find a male example of someone with the same type of issue who was, nonetheless, successful. But women just seem to not be taken seriously professionally, not be treated with the same respect, etc.

I'm angry. I'm less inclined to do stuff for other people than I once was because I have learned the hard way that it simply doesn't come back to me in a positive way in most cases. In fact, I have essentially been told by someone wealthy and powerful that someone I did a lot for continues to use their personal connections to wealthy people to tell lies about me and drag my name through the mud and this snake in the grass is apparently believed.

If Open Source is generally crapping all over writers half as much as I've been crapped on, there's your problem.