That's not really how economics works. The games market (for example) isn't capped by how many amazing games people could potentially play.
It's capped by the amount of money people have available to spend on games. So that money necessarily has to come from other parts of the economy. So when other parts of the economy suffer there is less money to pay for games.
Games are going to be a fairly elastic good, in that as much as I might love video games I'm not going to spend money on them if I'm struggling to afford food and rent. So in a bad market either games have to either become cheaper, or there will be less titles on the market.
Thus the demand for game developers either goes down or they will make less money each and the wages can only go so low before they will be forced to defect to other industries because their game salary won't make the rent.
Other jobs like trash collection will have a more steady supply/demand because even in a bad economy someone needs to take the crap away. I'm sure there are people who love trash collecting, but they are probably a minority of the workforce vs people who would prefer to get a trash collection salary for watching TV or playing video games.
The problem with telling people to "create opportunity" is that starting a business (as I have learned myself) is something that requires more capital than you think it does even if you are frugal. So unless you happen to be independently wealthy you are going to need to take that capital by either working at some other job or persuading an investor that your business will generate them a return.
So you have to find something that is the best compromise between "what I like to do" and "what do I think will make money" and usually the second one becomes the dominant factor.
I think realistic management of expectations is important, the world simply doesn't work in the way you suggest it does though I agree it would be preferable if it did.
I think that Pkoed's advice is unrealistic if everyone attempted to apply it to their lives, but this of course is never going to happen. On an individual scale, for the few hundred people who read his point of view here, it strikes me as a valid and reasonable way of seeing the world.
It's capped by the amount of money people have available to spend on games. So that money necessarily has to come from other parts of the economy. So when other parts of the economy suffer there is less money to pay for games. Games are going to be a fairly elastic good, in that as much as I might love video games I'm not going to spend money on them if I'm struggling to afford food and rent. So in a bad market either games have to either become cheaper, or there will be less titles on the market.
Thus the demand for game developers either goes down or they will make less money each and the wages can only go so low before they will be forced to defect to other industries because their game salary won't make the rent.
Other jobs like trash collection will have a more steady supply/demand because even in a bad economy someone needs to take the crap away. I'm sure there are people who love trash collecting, but they are probably a minority of the workforce vs people who would prefer to get a trash collection salary for watching TV or playing video games.
The problem with telling people to "create opportunity" is that starting a business (as I have learned myself) is something that requires more capital than you think it does even if you are frugal. So unless you happen to be independently wealthy you are going to need to take that capital by either working at some other job or persuading an investor that your business will generate them a return.
So you have to find something that is the best compromise between "what I like to do" and "what do I think will make money" and usually the second one becomes the dominant factor.