The EU's love of banning things is lazy policy-making. It's better to disincentivize and let markets take care of it. That way you preserve freedom while also encouraging desirable outcomes. Further reading: "Nudge" by Richard Thaler.
This shows that going out on your own is not always strictly better or more rewarding. As a software engineer you can simply rent your skills and be part of a bigger team and company that's arguably doing something more impactful than building widgets.
The finances work out better too. Market salary as a software engineer is easily in the 200-300k range and increases over time with experience and skill. You can also more easily cap your work hours at 30-40 hours a week especially if you're remote. Then if you can figure out a way to do that while living in Southeast Asia, it's hard to imagine quality of life getting better than that as you're now living like a king and should be able to save as much as 50% of your income and retire young.