The definition and path to becoming a freelancer

Hi everyone, today I would like to talk about a topic you can relate to, which is the freelancer's journey. Let's start with the following question

Is being a freelancer a lifestyle and at what point do you stop being a freelancer?

If we look up the definition of freelancer, it tells us that it is a person who works on his or her own account to provide services and get paid for it. . Under that definition I have this couple of questions that come to my mind

How profitable is it to be a freelancer all your life?
What is the motivation that drives you to become a freelancer?

Many colleagues have the vision of the freelancer as the person who travels the world programming, others simply don´t want to have a boss who is giving them orders and others just want to earn more because they don´t have a company that takes a percentage of their profit, the reasons can be endless.

I personally know people who have high earnings as freelancers, but I also know others who earn on average, the same as they would earn in a company, being this group the largest.

What is the biggest disadvantage of being a freelancer?

I think the main disadvantage of being a freelancer is that by depending on yourself, if something happens to you, you stop producing money, that is, you don´t have a backup team to support you and that sometimes tends to become a burden especially when there are people who depend on you economically. That would explain why most freelancers (statistically) are young and single people. So the question is

Is being a freelancer a lifestyle or is it just a stepping stone to building your own business?

I think it depends a lot on the perspective, motivation, and situation of each programmer, maybe there are some who would not change their freelancer status for more money or who look for a way to produce a lot of money, and there are others who dare to take that step to the next level by forming a working group or company, which leads to more management responsibility and less code.

What about you? Has your experience been different?
Let me know.

Thanks for reading!
Have a nice day, coders💜