[michaelt]

  that 'safety' of a 'regular'
  income is almost entirely
  illusory as well

Sure, to an extent, but there are differences of degree here.

If I work for Google and they go bankrupt, worst case I lose a month's salary and I'm unemployed. And the chance of that is probably below 5% per year (obviously depends on the company)

If I take a year off to develop my indie game, the odds are much worse, I gamble a year's salary not a month's, and if I end up unemployed I've already burned through a lot of my savings.

[mgkimsal]

"If I work for Google and they go bankrupt,"

Google may be a bad example. Google actually filing for bankruptcy would probably have a pretty big ripple effect on tech and financial sectors, and your skills may be in less demand than you think.

[otakucode]

You are absolutely correct about differences in degree, but I think you chose a pretty misleading example. It's not a matter of whether your employer goes bankrupt or not. Even if your employer continues to grow, if they don't grow as fast as they were predicted to grow, then they will throw employees out the front door without a second thought. If the market dips by 1%, then in order to still meet their goal of growing by 4% that quarter, they will 'cut the fat' and get rid of their employees (while holding on to their executives). Getting a job used to mean protection from fluctuations in the marketplace, so if the product the company makes suffers a bit in popularity, it just meant a reduced profit margin for the business that year. Now, a reduced profit margin is not an option. It's not even thinkable. Obviously the livelihoods of employees are dispensible in the face of that.

[grogenaut]

Salary, healthcare, bonuses, and investment contributions and their performance over the next 30 years