[tjmaxal]

Are you just doing research for researches sake? If so good for you. If not, why try and do it independently? Don't you think you deserve to be rewarded for your work? i.e. compensated either with prestige or money? At the very least would you like to be compensated for you contributions to the field?

[chime]

I guess I'm doing it for the end-goal's sake. I really do want people with disabilities to be able to communicate better, including my own cousin. As long as my bills are being paid (regardless of the source of income), I don't need any rewards. I'm not a saint or anything - I just don't want to deal with the overhead of funding, grants, scholarships, sales, marketing, clients, customers. I want to make a usable, innovative product and keep improving it. A few years ago my preliminary version got #1 on HN ( http://chir.ag/projects/ktype/ ) and since that day I have been working hard to change my life so I could work on it full-time. Took over a year but I can finally do it now, so I'm very happy.

[msg]

You might not want "customers" but nothing will help you innovate like users. Where I work we get mountains of feedback and use it to justify new features and to prioritize bug fixes.

[chime]

I wholeheartedly agree and I intend to start working with my potential users very soon.

[nutanc]

Prestige and compensation are two ways of being rewarded. Another way is to just see your work make the world a better place and feel satisfied.