The Copyright Era: Are You Ready?

At 9 p.m., after the workday ends, more and more people are switching on a different screen instead of the one bearing their company logo.

Not long ago, someone with a side hustle might have been told, “You’re certainly hardworking.” Now, it can feel more unusual not to have one.

According to a recently released report on single-person households in South Korea, 59.6% of people living alone now have a second job or side hustle alongside their main job.

That figure stood at 42% in 2022. In just a few years, it has climbed to six in ten.

The proportion is even higher among people in their 20s, reaching 69.1%. In other words, two out of every three are already working two or more jobs.

But there is one important point to consider.

Although the number of people taking on side work is rising rapidly, statistics show that their hourly earnings are actually declining.

In other words, income is not keeping pace with the additional hours worked.

That is because most side hustles—delivery work, casual jobs and other forms of gig work—depend on people putting in more time and physical effort.

Ultimately, it is a system in which people have to sell their time and energy all over again after already spending them on their main job.

Digital products require neither inventory nor shipping boxes.

Take character merchandise, for example.

A creator who makes and sells stickers or plush toys has to place production orders, store the inventory somewhere, pack each order as it comes in and make trips to the post office.

Every one of those steps takes time. After finishing their main job, they have to spend the evening wrestling with shipping boxes instead.

Digital sticker packs work in a completely different way.

Once a character has been created and uploaded, there is no inventory to manage, no shipping and no processing returns.

The moment someone makes a purchase, the product is delivered automatically, leaving the designer free to do something else. Sketching a few ideas on the commute, adding color during lunch and spending 10 minutes before bed uploading the finished work to a marketplace—that is enough for creation and distribution to keep moving with just a few spare moments.

If a side hustle demands more time, it is simply another burden for someone already exhausted.

When a business can run on the scraps of time left over, those moments become breathing room rather than another burden.

Not a schedule, but fragments of time

What people juggling multiple jobs may really need is not “more time,” but a system that lets them use the spare time they already have without wasting it.

The WordPress marketplace being built by Decoblocks is designed around that kind of system.

There are no fixed working hours, inventory warehouses or shipping cutoffs. Designers can create when they feel like drawing and upload their work when they are ready; the system takes care of the rest.

For people whose main job already makes each day feel overwhelming—and who do not want the time they spend drawing what they love to become another form of labor—Decoblocks hopes to provide a space that fits into the gaps.