> determined almost entirely by people who are well-off enough to have the free time to do that.
The word “amateur” used to be a positive thing, meaning that an amateur really had the time to get to know their field and weren’t distracted by the business side of things.
I still consider it this way because it means someone loves, cares about what he is doing, and generally does not have much delay pressure, which allows him to take time to refine his word. And I use the word "professional" in a depreciative way.
"Oh, look at this hedge, it was trimmed by professionals, they damaged every single branch."
"Hey, look at how they painted the door, there's paint over the hinges and even the lock is stuck with it. That's professional work."
"Oh, my basic tool that [big software editor] forces me to use leaks 1Gb memory per hour. That's professional software (developed by the nephew of the trainee)."
So basically, for me, "professional" refers to a work that was done with great efficiency, but time and money spent were the only metric of this efficiency. Quality, attention, precision, thought about the consequences, the future were not part of the parameters.
The word “amateur” used to be a positive thing, meaning that an amateur really had the time to get to know their field and weren’t distracted by the business side of things.