Corporations taking over side hustles seems to be screwing over people, since they take such a large cut and flood the market for that hustle.

But the ones I’ve personally seen people do that work pretty well (in USA) are:

Stay at home mom watching another kid (legally dubious depending on state/situation. But I ain’t no narc.)

A neighbor of my mom’s sends out a menu saying what she plans on cooking each night for that week, and for $X will deliver you some as well (Legal in Utah due to special laws, other states could be dubious. )

People who go pick up free furniture that is pretty trashed, and then refurbishes it and sells it. Or people with trucks who are like “Will deliver furniture for $30 in X area” is also pretty life saver for people without cars/trucks. Was able to get a super cheap/nice coach because of this.
People who just flip free stuff or stuff from thrift stores without doing any improvements annoy me greatly though. We broke and you’re just driving up the price!

None of these generate a ton of cash, but I like that they take very little up front cost, aren’t disruptive, and mostly take labor.

So what side hustles have you seen work out?

  • ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
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    3 hours ago

    Honestly just convincing old folks that “Hey whenever something stressful happens on your computer, please for the love of god just call me.”

    Is worth its weight in gold to prevent scams. A big thing scammer prey on is shame, blaming the individual. If there is someone they have paid to help them and trust to help them with any issue without judgement, I would hope they would lean on that person when scared by a scammer. So as long as it’s for the right reasons I can see how cool that could be!

    I do like the computer literacy classes that get ran for older folks, and the ones about avoiding scams. So I can see how this can be good!

    • TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world
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      57 minutes ago

      Very good point. Eliminating shame gets them to be interested and ask good questions.

      I have been side by side when someone got scammed. They’re fucking scum.

      She had the windows support scare ware. Called the number. They walked her through putting the remote desktop software. 10 downloads on the queue so they were patient.

      Called while i was looking to see damage. Blocked number. They called again from a private line still in character as Microsoft support.

      She had 2 factor because her daughter got her to do that so she was safe.

      Shit is scary.

      • ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
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        52 minutes ago

        Super glad she had the support system to prevent that! People can end up homeless from one little mistake.

        I usually try not to say “youtubers are making the world better”, but the youtubers who are all about educating about scams and talking about how common they are and how anyone can fall for them I think does help. Everyone would like to imagine “I am too smart to fall for a scam, I’ll know right away!”

        But that’s how they get ya!