One of the downsides is your job can be easily outsourced to a country with lower wages, and with remote work here to stay (IMO), that is going to be even easier than before.
There are no remote plumbers.
I firmly believe that if you show up on time, are pleasant, and are competent at your work, running your own business is a slam dunk and you can charge whatever you want (within reason). Because my experience is that it's nearly impossible anymore to get all of those things.
There are shops that specialize in "re-shoring" projects after cheap offshored contractors end up spending the complete project's budget without shipping anything working.
Their salespeople would talk to potential clients, get the project's duration, then quote them a reasonable price for domestic developers, get laughed out of the room as the company decide to go with much cheaper "best cost countries". Then a few months before the end of the contract they would contact the same company again and most of the times (assuming the company was still alive, a lot of badly capitalized startups just shut down at this point after having wasted all their runway) end up re-doing the project.
But hey, this time, it’s going to be different!
Consequently, if you find someone who doesn't do commercial, beware.
Exception: someone over the age of 55 who continues doing skilled work as a "pro-hobby."
Software development in practice is rarely about how to build a thing, but very much about what to build.
And I have yet to see an outsourced shop that's good at solving that problem. (Sadly)
Only if PII isn't an issue. Which it still is for a large number of remote jobs. You have to do the work inside US borders because of liability or security issues for an incredibly large number of remote roles. If you don't believe me, just roll over to weworkremotely.com or any of the other remote job boards and check out how many current openings specify "USA only."
E.g., while I was growing up, a guy in the neighborhood was doing really well. He was in the peanut vending business, you remember, put in a coin, turn a crank, and get out some peanuts. So the customer, how do they know how much money the peanut vendor is making?
It’s really hard to outsource.
This is one of those things I believe to be more about feel.
That plumber has done this 1000 times and will make it look easy.
They can pass you tools, walk you through it, give you as much help as you can possibly receive, but you'll struggle a ton anyway. Or, as you say, break it.
Practice makes perfect. Sometimes it is still cheaper to get somebody who knows what they're doing. We can't yet remote that in.
Back in the 1980s there were a lot more jobs in manufacturing, doing things like manual machining; and every driver had to have basic mechanic's skills because cars needed constant tinkering.
We've got many more youtube videos showing how to use a hacksaw - but far fewer people who use hacksaws on a daily basis.
AR/VR does not make one experienced.
