In my case I wanted a particular piece of software that I had visualized. I found someone and agreed on a price, and provided what we needed to collaborate, and watched the progress. He accepted critical feedback and did a good job. That software has been adapted and ported to more platforms since. The effect was to compress my time and energy invested, and I paid with money earned from my full time job.

I’m still glad I did it. It’s okay to farm out the intensive work and savor the fun bits yourself. There are people waiting to do this for cash.

There are two sorts of projects (or in general, people): artisans, and entrepreneurs. The latter see code as a means to an end, possibly monetized, and the former see code as the end in itself.