It’s a lot easier to freelance in technical fields in a market that’s not saturated with techies like the Bay Area. (It may be easier to be a W-2 bendover bitch in the Bay Area, though.)

And no, it’s not illegal to be a freelance tech person unless you’re working on 1099 to a middleman. Direct 1099 relationships are perfectly legal, subject to the usual IRS tests.

And then you don’t have to work for a bunch of arseholes who dictate your entire life to you as if you were a kindergartener.