I appreciate that it worked for you. I don't want to invalidate your experience. I just want to say that there is a good reason such a large gap exists between the evidence that job hopping is beneficial, and people actually doing it.
I want to point out that a) you have a skillset and job area that is conducive to freelancing and b) that building a network requires networking, which again is something that costs energy and social and communication skills.
These are not a given and should not be treated as a no-cost activity. Especially your last sentence implies a required focus on impact- again, your reward is more money, but there is a cost to doing this at work.
But it's also in one's self interest to have a stable relationship with colleagues, being used to an environment, not changing things drastically so frequently.
There is a big, non-monetary cost to job hopping. If life outside of work is not stable, than changing the one constant is suddenly not appealing, even if more money is the reward.
This, so much. Every time they get posted I just feel very uncomfortable by this. Just because no one is holding a gun to their head, doesn’t mean that they don’t feel obligated to keep their father alive as it were. I honestly just can’t believe that this is genuine.