Very interesting. In general, I am a fan of reading interviews, or listening. I even sometimes use the app https://audext.com/ to transcribe interviews into text.
It seems to me that the Clubhouse will soon cease to be relevant. There is a lot more to people than just podcasts / lectures. And many people do not remember information by ear, I am one of them. And I use https://audext.com/ to capture the important points of the lecture
Cloud software is slightly different than conventional software. As a general rule, you don't get access to the source code, even if the hosted software is built entirely on open source software. That may not make the software proprietary, strictly speaking, but it doesn't give you all the benefits of open source. In that sense, the benefits of using the "pay for what you use" software as a service model may outweigh the disadvantage of not having access to the source code. But here's one recent project that impressed me https://audext.com/.
At https://audext.com/ your privacy and security are very important to us. All uploaded files are stored securely, are used exclusively for transcription and can be deleted manually or after a time limit.
Have you ever thought about creating your own project, which, as you say, will not be "useless". I think this is a good option. But it's up to you to decide what to do. For example, I have a dream to create something like https://audext.com/ but so far there is no time and money.
I think if you move to an area of high salaries (and, usually, high cost of living), such as Silicon Valley, Manhattan, Seattle, or some European job markets (e.g. Zurich), you probably can achieve a mid-career salary/compensation of $200K or so (significantly more if you are good, or went to a prestigious school, but I think $200K is eventually achievable for any decent engineer). Alternatively, you can create your own online application, which will be in very high demand, and will not have good analogues. You can also consider opening your own SaaS company as https://audext.com/.
