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  • Hacker News
  • Wrong. For that, we’d need universal healthcare.
    by readread
  • Isn't it strange. We don't, and yet they all still flock here.
    by honeycrispy
  • https://archive.vn/edCMx

    Surprised to see this many comments and noone actually linking to the article.

    by zrobotics
  • I’m not sure having lots of people do something necessarily means it’s therefore a “paradise” for them. I view it as more of a necessity because many companies have degraded the jobs and the pay they offer. Why break your back for someone else and still never be able to afford a house?
    by dabinat
  • One can't start a real world business without substantial capital to get it off the ground. The absence of this capital is still what's holding back at least nine out of every ten entrepreneurial ideas. Often the requirement starts at a million dollars, and scaling the business requires 10x. As for VCs and banks, they won't fund anything too experimental.
    by OutOfHere
  • I'm intrigued how often the most mundane products and things are in fact multi million dollar industries. Would be fascinating to see in 40-50 years how AI affected that trend and pattern, the "ceiling" if you will of entrepreneurial ventures.
    by tolugenius
  • A million dollars really isn't so much these days
    by slashdave
  • > I'm intrigued how often the most mundane products and things are in fact multi million dollar industries.

    Absolutely. https://www.wsj.com/business/making-money-wealth-boring-8cc6...

    by julienchastang
  • The last 3-4 years have had tax obstacles that have motivated funded models over bootstrapped businesses:

    1) the jobs act introduced a toxic R&D code from 2022-2025

    2) tariffs with no reasonable means of manufacturing domestically and inhibited developing production lines with the prior tax code fiasco

    by spr-alex
  • How does any of this article have anything to do with America specifically?

    Getting off the ground with a small business in America stinks in a lot of ways. Taxes are high and health insurance is really expensive when you have to cover it yourself.

    by tripleee
  • "health insurance is really expensive when you have to cover it yourself."

    Not necessarily, often it is much less.

    t. I am a partner in an L&H insurance agency.

    by ecommerceguy
  • On the contrary, if you don't expect to need a doctor you can get really cheap coverage, just with a really high deductible. I only pay $100/month for $1 million in coverage, but my deductible is $20k so I pay out of pocket for all health expenses, but am covered during a major emergency (over $1 million I have bigger problems to worry about than paying off medical debt..)

    Normal health insurance like employer provided (or universal healthcare) is the healthy paying for the sick, which while altruistic is what's actually expensive.

    by repeekad
  • Seems like Instagram (and TikTok) are a big part of the story here. A lot of these 'buy my hat with a funny slogan' or 'buy my lotion' stores on Shopify, Etsy etc are highly dependent on direct-response ads / performance marketing so their fates are tied to these social media platforms
    by firasd
  • Ie, a junk economy. None of this produces value, if anything it's parasitic.
    by helterskelter
  • There's a very thin line between "full-time self-employment" and unemployment. As the article itself states, the count of new business applications correlates with economic downturns and rise in unemployment. If no one is hiring you it's easy to write "entrepreneur" or "AI startup founder" or "influencer" on your LinkedIn. Doubly so when you don't even need to go to city hall to register your business, just press a few buttons online and you'll have an entity in any state you want.

    Conspicuously missing from the article among all the other numbers – how many of these businesses earn enough money to pay the owner's rent?

    by paxys
  • >Full-time self-employment rose to its highest level this century in 2025, reaching 16.8m, according to the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, a trade group.

    A common refrain is that all the "entrepreneurs" are just gig economy workers, and I was initially skeptical of this too, but it does seem to check out. The top industries with aren't related to gig economy or truckers, in fact that industry shrunk.

    https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20260801_EPC...

    by gruez
  • same way republicans champion small business owners and theyre just talking about contractors and nonW2 workers who are often illegally forced into tax advoidance schemes as a contractor requires reasonable independance. uber drivers are a good example.
    by cyanydeez