[escapedmoose]

You present only the two options to offer labor to 1) an organization in which you’re not compensated in proportion to your output, vs 2) a solo practice where you’re forced to bear the burden of scaling/resource/etc costs on your own. You’re ignoring option 3) where you offer your labor to a collective organization of which you are granted proportional ownership as a condition of employment and can participate in setting the rules of your own compensation and expense burden democratically.

In option 3 the system benefits from every member’s labor contributions, AND every member benefits from the “context of a system created by someone else”