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Comment by jareklupinski | Hacker News Reader

> I get so curious about people’s financial situations when they’re able to make such asymmetrical moves like that. He lives in a rural town near Pittsburgh, does selling $10 zines afford that lifestyle? What about healthcare? Does he have a trust fund? A recent inheritance? Bitcoin? Years of an early retirement strategy paying off? I shouldn’t ruin the anti-capitalistic vibe with such trivial capitalistic questions but I love it and my brain jumps to trying to make the math work for myself.

peoples' true natures/intentions make more sense when you remove "because money" from the equation

but it's hard to see through it when your own life revolves around "because money"

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Problem is, you may not care about money but the grocery store usually does.

I read that paragraph not as "this will make your finances worse" but as "can you even afford to do this?"

It is much easier to go full kumbaya when your savings can last for the rest of your lifetime.

It’s really kind of a pervasive attitude, akin to fish and the concept of water.

“But why would you do that if you can’t make any money from it?”

It’s so difficult to overcome this tendency to dismiss ideas because they don’t lead to income, especially if you aren’t financially secure/have years of savings in the bank.

Yes. This. It extends further to thoughts like, "but you can't expect someone to do <obviously moral thing> because it's less profitable, so how do you incentivize it?"

I propose "incentivize" be a 2026 front runner for curse word. It's just a gross concept these days.

OP isn't dismissing the zine idea, he just is curious how the zine author is able to buy food and shelter.

I was just having a similar debate with someone whose point boiled down to "but the GDP", to which my reply was: what is the purpose of GDP if it does not translate into quality of life of the population? This should not be a controversial position, but apparently it is, and it has been the case at least since the 80s or 90s, which is when I think the word "society" began to get replaced with "economy" in popular discourse. I could be wrong.

Is it really such a weird question?

He’s not on a board of VCs interrogating if your questionable project is worth millions. It’s a simple question of if whatever you’re doing is enough to provide a living.

I know several people who live doing things like this. There are some things they all have in common that are interesting.

The main thing they all have in common is that none of them have a single source of income. Ultimately, the zine author isn't living just off their zines (even if the zine is the main thing). They also likely have three or four other things going on, and they probably all interface with each other to support the person. Maybe one thing makes profitable use of the output of, or waste product of, another, for instance. Maybe the different things tickle the same artistic bone, or use the same skills or equipment. Maybe they are economically different enough so that when times are weak for one, they're strong for another. That sort of thing.

As a concrete example, I have a friend who publishes zines, but also sells merch (some made by others on commission) that uses artwork from the zines, sells small paintings in local indie music stores, coffee shops, book stores, etc. and does commission work.

In straight business terms, it's really just the concepts of diversification and synergy applied in a way that seems unusual. That it seems unusual is interesting to me, because it's not, really. It's very old-school.

> but it's hard to see through it when your own life revolves around "because money"

I wouldn't put it that way. There's lots of people who wish for a life that doesn't "revolve around money", but who can't afford to stop working at their current pace.

just to make this explicit, that includes all people who aren't upper middle class or more wealthy.

> a life that doesn't "revolve around money", but who can't afford to stop working

i dont think anyone wished for entropy

and if they did; to heck with them

For most of my infancy the concept of money was not a thing. Not bc I was a child but because I lived in a remote village where you grew your own crops, poultry and if you wanted beef every now and then, like for Christmas, you’d find something of value, like clothing or salt, go to the farmer and exchange that. And everyone in your vicinity in the village would enjoy because obviously there were no fridges and dead things need to be consumed quickly.

You got sick and you would go to your usual antibiotics stash (if you had some farmaceutical knowledge everyone in the village would come to you as well) but people generally were just healthy period, because they walked for miles daily, went to the river to get water, to do laundry, come back by eod, kids would climb trees and catch some wild fruits to bring home, etc. insurance or financial safety wasn’t a concept that mattered. Caring for your food while it was alive was.

Today however, capitalism has penetrated so much of the planet that idk if you could go to a farmer and exchange a piece of clothing or salt for anything. So those communities may not be feasible anymore.

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