Why are more programmers not freelance these days?

I have a job that I'm currently happy with. I work regularly and get paid regularly. Of course there's always too much things to do, but still, the work is mostly interesting and the workload is approximately constant and predictable. Hardly so with freelancing (think of work requests as a Poisson process, and how the stability of frequency depends on the average frequency; a cafeteria with 10 customers and 1 toilet is not linearly proportional to a cafeteria with 100 customers and 10 toilets, i.e. the queue is not similar).
Going freelance would require me to do all the marketing, selling, bureaucracy etc. boring and scary (but admittedly, important) stuff. Actually I don't think I could do it successfully. At least I would hate it.

People start working for companies because of other benefits you get from salaried jobs, social activities, girls, regular pay rise and of course tried and tested path for the most of us.

When you are freelancing, you are on your own, irregular project orders may be, bidding for projects can be confusing as in how much to bid, is it very high or very low. After some experience you start bidding accurately but that takes some time. While not having projects, loneliness makes you start thinking negatively. Many people who are freelancing I am sure are well organized and they know how to get the most of them. They are busy bees most of the day and they get to enjoy their flexible timings.

Ok, two myths there: 1) Pay - it may look like there are wide gaps but there are a lot of hidden costs to employing someone that a contractor or freelancer has to bear for themselves 2) No overtime. Really? It may not be called overtime but you're not liable to have to work any less hard.

On top of which - depending on location - employees get paid holiday and all sorts of other benefits (e.g. pensions, paid sick leave) that freelancers have to fund themselves (c.f. hidden costs above).

Further, a freelancer has to do all the stuff that programmers often struggle with - find business in the first place, manage the work they have, invoice, chase invoices, chase invoices some more (getting paid is much, much easier when the company runs a payroll every month), deal with taxes and expenses and capital allowances and all sorts of things that you tend not to have to worry about as an employee.


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