My oldest site is turning 22 years this 2020, the second on the list: 20 years (just to mention two). Profitable. Money making enough for what? to buy a house? yes. Enough to quit the daily job? NO!, never. This is not a self advertising-self-centered-thread and absolutely, no intention to celebrate 20+ years of something, far from it. It's to discus the power of personal (web) projects.

Hobby/passion sites should mean something, you should be working on one right now. Web Master World is by far one of the few places I have found where some members talked about passion/hobby projects, things turned into profitable and even authority sites. Several times people trying to create or establish something, were told to put effort on hobbies and passions, and small comments were shared about personal projects. Years go by and I'm still finding new positive implications on this. And it's been key for business in my case.

Let's get back to the opening paragraph, conversations are easily filled with concepts about money, success, latest technologies, etc, and most go after "money", while VERY FEW engage on trying something, developing a skill and getting better on doing something that should have meaning and should suppose to last any period of time greater than... 1 year. One year? yes, I look back and many clients an even ex work places are not around anymore, their great ideas gone, their websites gone, etc. Even websites that I created for them became another JPG (screenshot) because their sites are not online anymore, mine still are. BTW just cleaned my business card box today and it was funny how much power, success and money they projected: 99% of them are GONE, even despite their confident words that it should last in order to approach the other "next level" business they have in list.

I worked at places and had several business experiments on my own, but nothing has been so consistent, stable and profitable over the years as my hobby sites, no kidding. And this comes absolutely unplanned, I never thought things would go this way, but most importantly, any conversation with friends and colleagues often turns into what the previous paragraph describes: money, power, success. Me? funny enough I didn't aim for that, and I quickly learned NOT TO openly talk about this. You can't always keep things secret, but I'm unable to share in short sentences how not revealing I'm behind or I'm the owner of such projects has been absolutely positive, again: I didn't aim for what most people aimed, most want easy and fast money, and their picture on some newspaper article.

You can't say you have a hobby or passion if you don't put your mind to work on it, passion and personal projects ARE delicate words, it's something I would be interested on evaluating as a key aspect when hiring someone. Why? If someone tells me they love something, have a passion but have no proof about it or won't dedicate time to it, I have no reason to believe that's true. Sadly a lot of people regardless of what they say, they just want money... or fame, people recognizing them as successful, and that makes them vulnerable. Related? Lots of people around the world consider being married a good indicator for specific job positions, they explain: it means something, it means you can commit and dedicate to bigger things that can last many years. (You can judge and agree-disagree with their views all you want, or say you are single but responsible, etc, it's valid, but it's not about that, it's about the practical point being made there).

It's about honesty. Yet this is where lots of people disagree, many create "successful" products to sell but they don't use them themselves. Many sell services that they don't use themselves (instead they hire someone else). And many web creators talking about SEO or developing great ideas don't even have a website on their own surviving the 1 year mark, and sorry but parked domains or dead websites don't count. This is an unconscious clear message that most people wouldn't hire themselves. It's also about trust and stability, because many experienced clients want someone who can handle their business, systems and information management solutions for more than one year, things that actually last over time, yet most people offering the solution can't even take care of a goldfish or understand what's like to have something for more than 1, 2, 3 years, scalability, stability.

Same for so many ultra experienced developers in whatever technology like PHP, LUA, Python, CSS, supposed ultra optimized sites, etc, but their personal website was built on Wordpress... a free template included. This has been criticized for people in the field, and don't discuss WP as valid, it's-about-understanding-the-point.

[edited by: explorador at 7:07 pm (utc) on Sep 9, 2020]