Why we gave up web design after 10 successful years to move to products
>Clients were my bosses, and we were at the mercy of their whim.<p>Not sure how I see the difference between this and the phrase you get by substituting "Customers".  It's all well and good deciding to be entrepreneurial, but if the shmoes with the $$ don't play along, it's not going to be fun.  You're going to have to compromise your ideals to sell product.<p>To me, a better way of describing the shift from consulting to product development is that you can sell the same development effort multiple times when it's a product.  Thus, no matter how well the consultants work, there's an upper limit on their income.