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by skelseys 2086 days ago
Everything seems to suggest that this has already happened. The reason this works as a 'side hustle' is because it's only lucrative if you ascribe a very low value to your time (and your car mileage, and the stress of doing admin for your 'business').

The fact the big players don't bother, the number of 'entrepreneurs' doing this in their spare time, the fact that they repair, move and restock the machines themselves, the calculations which ignore the presumably high risk of vandalism or theft, the presence of a landlord who can charge you as much as they like. And finally, the existence of 'mentors' who will charge you to be taught how to replicate their business.
1 comments
ghaff 2085 days ago
I'd add that what people here are calling a "side hustle" is something that quite a few people without a lot of marketable skills would call a job/income stream. And, yes, there are a lot of jobs/income streams that work for individuals who lack a lot of alternatives that don't work for companies that have offices, accountants, etc.
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ska 2085 days ago
I think what makes it a "side hustle" is that it is practical to do on top of a full time job (multiple jobs). Obviously if you scale the number of machines up it starts to look more like a small business, but it looks practical to do one or two machines in your "spare" time.
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skelseys 2085 days ago
There are a lot of opportunities like this. However, when you look at many of them in detail, they pay very very poorly.
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bluGill 2085 days ago
As a sole operator though the pay is better because you don't have overhead. If you pay a helper, some of the net income goes to you as the manager, and some to them (you can split that up however you choose). In some businesses management is hard and so the manager can skim off the top of their employees and yet their great management skills can pay the employees more than they would get along. This isn't one of those business where skilled management is required though, so a manager is just skimming off the top and a good employee will soon figure out they can start their own business and make more money without the manager.
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