"there’s something profoundly liberating about leaving academe, whereupon you are no longer obliged to give a shit about fashionable thinkers, network at the planet’s most boring parties, or quantify self-worth for scurrilous committees (and whereupon you are free to ignore the latest same-old controversy), for even when you know at the time that the place is toxic, only after you exit (spiritually, not physically) and write an essay or read a novel or complete some other task without considering its relevance to the fascist gods of assessment, or its irrelevance to a gang of cynical senior colleagues, do you realize exactly how insidious and pervasive is the industry’s culture of social control."
I already saw it from the outside. Being an independent researcher's main drawback is you might not make any money. We usually do it as a hobby on top of a full-time job. Having less attention, both for help and promotion, is next one. The wins are that you can do whatever you want, however you want, write it the way you like, and enjoy it as it was meant to be enjoyed. I'm probably about to transition into paid research and/or product development soon. I did thoroughly enjoy throwing my mind at hard problems for years without feeling the pressure to think and do things I didn't want to. And the parties I threw or attended weren't boring. :)