I could say good buy to my (comparatively) low guaranteed salary to "setup my own shop", but my current employer wouldn't take me as consultant since we have a rule about size of companies we deal with. So I would have to start looking for new client(s) from scratch without any guarantee I will find even one.

I love my job as it allows me to solve puzzles and get paid for them. It’s worth letting someone else take a cut to bring me the puzzles so I can focus on puzzle solving.

I don’t envy anyone running a small HVAC installation company or whatever. The work is boring, the paperwork mindnumbing, the hours often grueling. When one of your three employees gets sick or goes on a drinking binge, you’re the one who has to figure it out.

If I had to choose, I’d rather work as a librarian even for 0.1x the salary. But of course we’re very lucky that there are so many interesting and well-paid knowledge jobs today.

It's not even that most won't start their own shop (which is perfectly do-able), it's also that they will actively attack even the mere notion of it.

And its usually using "isms" like "its hard to get clients", "its risky", "multiple clients mean multiple bosses" and "90% of businesses fail in the first 5 years" and other nonsense.

Edit: then the economy takes a turn, mass tech layoffs happen and it makes some people think.