I used to earn close to $20 per hour playing low-stakes. Nowadays it's more like $12 due to higher rake and average opponent skill.I totally agree and you are exactly right. When I first got into poker last year I ran really well and made a little over 1k within my first 10 games. I then I went on a downswing from late spring through summer that brought my net total to -$500, which is nothing given the amount of time I was playing. In August I won almost every game and made close to 2k. From Labor day up until I quit I lost on almost all of my games. I was getting into a lot of ridiculous spots, I had a stretch where literally every full house I lost to a higher full house, etc. I was playing about once or twice per week and logged close to 400 hours total, I didn't even realize this until I went to check my points on the casino card and was legitimately shocked lol. After it all, I was losing at about $10/hour, with most of this being due to rake and just having a really bad losing streak over a prolonged period of time. I consider myself a roughly break even player.
Here is the take from this. If you are a decent player and like to play, $10/hour for a hobby is absolutely nothing, that's not even going out to dinner lol. However, the problem is that the game can become addictive, it's incredibly easy to spend way too much time on a game that really isn't going to bring any real value to your life other than entertainment. This would make it a distraction from other things going on, such as family, career, school, other hobbies, etc. There have been many games where I show up and next thing I know I had been playing for 6 hours, which is insane to think about.
When you factor all of this in, here is my take on it. If you like to play for fun and can keep it at a reasonable level there is nothing wrong with it. The problem is when you get hooked on a game where at BEST you are making what some guy at McDonald's is earning, worst case scenario is you are actually a bad player and consistently lose a ton of money.
Yes, live swings can be absolutely brutal.