That blogpost was actually what drawed me to this site. I saw a link that said "ten reasons not to get a job" and curiosity got the best of me
I think Steve's right. In my country (the Netherlands), the danger of a job is less extreme. Unless you kill your boss and hide his dead body in the office Xerox printer, they can't just say "you're fired" and put you on the street. The law is kind to employees in that way. Still, of your boss wants to get rid of you and is willing to pay a fine, you'll be out of work after a month cancellation period. You get to work for another month and paid for two, but after that it's over. If you haven't found a new job by then, things will financially quickly go downhill. Even worse if you have a temporary contract for only a year or six months. If they choose not to renew it, you have no rights at all. Some countries are employee friendlier than others, but you're never truly safe.
Steve doesn't have one boss: he has thousands, maybe even more. If I 'fire' him by no longer clicking on his ads, he still has thousands of other 'bosses' that pay him. Why put all your eggs in one basket?
I will get a job after college, but mostly to learn the ropes, imprive my social skills and save up money that I can use to startup my own business or use as an emergency funds when business goes less well than expected. When I was 16, I wrote two books that have been publiced under a 'young writers' label by a fairly well known publisher in the Netherlands. They weren't bestsellers, but even now I still get royalties every year without having to do additional work. I created value rather than trading my hours for a one-time fee, though money wasn't really on my mind back then. But those yearly checks only after reading Steve's post made me realize the power of passive income.
I hope to write another book soon (things happened in my life, read my first post if you want to know) and eventually become a full-time writer. Not for the money, but because It's what I love to do. There is never a waking moment that writing is not on my mind. Being a full-time writer in the Netherlands is difficult, though. My country only has 17 milion people. That means less competing dutch writers, but also less books-published-per-year and less potential readers. There is also much competition from foreign books and publishers will often rather translate an existing bestseller rather than take their chances with a new manusscript. I did write a third book as a sequel to the first two, but that one never made it. It discouraged me a lot, though I should feel lucky that my first two manuscripts even made it out of the sludge pile. A friend of mine wants to have her book published, but she has a shoebox full of rejection notes.
If I want to ever stand a chance to generate income from my books, I will probably have to write them in English so I may reach a broader audience. I have no guarantee my manuscript will ever make it out of the sludge pile, especially since I'm not native English. But I'm just going to ignore all nay-sayers, write an english book, mail it to an agent in England (at least that's relatively closeby) and go for broke. Even if it takes me 60 years!