Not everyone measures success by money and leisure time. Especially in more creatively-derived industries, like culinary arts, I find that money has little to do with what people judge as success. Many simply want to make the best food they can.
It's true what you are saying (not everyone..) but I am not sure that there's so much creativity in 99% of the food industry. Take NaOH, he makes pretzels, using a very good recipe that he probably doesn't want to change, how much innovation can he put in that? Please note that I'm not critizing or bashing his work,not at all, I've upvoted his posts because I found them very interesting, it's just that I think that when you move to "professional" food production, at some point what you are asked is delivering with consistency, and you have less space for being creative.
I like cooking, I am not bad at it, and when I moved to this country (Luxembourg, coming from Italy) I was unemployed and so I was joking with friends saying things like "if I don't find a job I could open a restaurant" but of course it was just a joke, first of all because you should really have worked in that sector before starting to do something on your own, and second because one thing is cooking a good Risotto for your family once a week, another thing is doing it for 10 tables every single day...I think it can become quite repetitive and not enjoyable
On the food side, I agree with you about there not being much room for creativity in my setup. I'm comfortable with that. I like it, even, since coming up with new items or menus was never a part of the work I particularly enjoyed. Plus, that work complicates ordering and increases the risk of food waste. Sure, I do some of that, but not much and not on a regular basis.
Yet there is plenty of room for creativity. I focus on trying to bring that to customer service. I've worked diligently to make it so that all my customers know I will do whatever I possibly can to help them, pretzel-related or otherwise. Some things are across the board, like not requiring specific lead times for orders (in this field it can be up to 48 hours). Others are customer-specific, like getting an order at 9:15AM and delivering it by 11AM (fresh-baked goods, remember), or doing dishes for three hours because I've got time and my customer's dishwasher decided to no-show, or bringing a customer a giant 5-pound pretzel to help that group of people celebrate its first anniversary of being open.
All of that contributes to my business doing okay despite the lack of marketing on my part. People rave about the products I make, and the businesses to whom I sell are comfortable recommending me to other businesses. I mean, we all know word of mouth is the best marketing—not just for its low cost but mostly for the weight it carries—and since I’m a wholesaler my best opportunity for generating word of mouth is through customer service for the businesses buying from me. That’s an area where there’s always room for creativity since circumstances and the people involved provide diverse opportunities for me to respond well.
I love programming, and think I'd do it even if it didn't pay well, but I'm not sure you can do that forever. Most people get married, have kids and so on, and can't keep up the intensity with low pay.
Also, there's a lot to be said for creating a viable business - "working on your business, rather than in your business" as the quote goes, that can run without you.
