How can you have an article that claims an increase ("more ...") in the title, but then doesn't actually say what the increase was, or even that it was measured at all.
Older people have decades of experience & knowledge. Of course they invent things nytimes. This is not a story.
But inventing does not guarantee a golden payday. Only 2 to 3 percent of all inventors make any money from their inventions, experts said.
Key point. It takes more than just an idea to bring an invention to market. Most inventions never get to market for the simple reason their inventors lack the business acumen and don't get the right people involved.
After inventing something the only thing you need to worry about is finding investors, patenting, finding a business person, finding a manufacturer, prototyping, safety testing, finding suppliers and coordinating it all so that you can make a profit. Most people sadly try to do it all themselves, but it takes a special kind of person to know how to do it all themselves and get it right the first time.
Are you sure? Has there been a study done on inventions/patents to know how many are that useful? For instance, if I come up with a, I dunno, a coffee filter that's 2% more effective, sure I've invented something. But I might not make any money ever because a 2% efficiency increase is irrelevant for non-industrial-scale things, generally. (Or maybe that 2% gain costs 5% more.) So maybe a lot of people are just inventing "stuff" that while technically an invention, isn't really that useful, business acumen or not.
I think in general, More People Are Becoming Inventors. Shows like Shark Tank, Dragons Den, etc. have made starting a startup (a.k.a inventing) a mainstream thing to do, and it is (slowly) becoming more common.
You may have your cause and effect mixed up. Reality TV follows society, it doesn't create it.
I think the cultural drift towards self-fulfillment of your own destiny is due to the societal move away from decades-long jobs. People no longer get a job and work it for four decades, then retire. Our cultural outlook on work has changed, as people constantly evaluate their current position and direction. And that, in turn, drives people to try new things, which results in more inventions and startups.
Only 2 to 3 percent of all inventors make any money from their inventions
Oh how true. How true. I invented ToDoCal, the large format todo list / calender hybrid. My customers loved it. It sold like crap. I could never sell more than 300 a year. It was on blogs, amazon, ebay, etsy, my own store. It would not sell more than 300 units a year.
Loving a product and wanting a product are 2 different things.
How could this article go on without discussing the issue of abysmal savings interest rates, pushing more people into investing rather than watch their savings dwindle in the bank?
[1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html