Code a bot that code bots that make money
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But seriously, a lot of stuff already mentioned.
You either:
* Do your own thing (freelancer).
* Get a job at a company.
Doing both is a pain.
Job at company requires "less thinking" if you can say that.
You just have ton of tasks and you deal with them, but you usually need to work at fixed hours per week which kinda sucks. If you like the job, it might be better.
Might get boring after some time.
Being a freelancer you need to think what you want to do, what you can do, what might make you money.
Even if you have an idea in which you invest countless of hours while making it, nothing will ensure that you get any profit of it. Promoting is hard, people might not see it as useful as you do.
If you make something successful it's much more rewarding within I think, you know you made something of your own.
Companies do pay quite good, but it's usually penises what the project is really worth. Unless you're a project manager, but that doesn't involve too much of coding then...
If you need guaranteed money, I would keep an eye for a job in the company and maybe try to spend some time on personal projects in free time (including research and other stuff).