No, this was an example of why it won't work. THAT is essentially also THE reeason why communism doesn't work. When people are not forced to work to survive, they won't work. Those who work will see that people who don't work still get benefits, so why should they work? Soon nobody wants to work, because why should they.
The same is with cutting back on comfort of living. If I cut my comfort, but my neighbor don't and payoff is equal for us both, why should I suffer more than him? This is our basic species morality which we found even in apes [0].
I would not (but I have job I love and it's good paid), but about half people I know would stop working. If I hadn't wife from lower social class I wouldn't know those people and would probably say like you. Those people are REALLY not like Bill Gates. They typically have primary education, work in a job they don't like but don't have enough skills to have a better job and aren't intelligent enough to aquire those skills, even if they had free time. Some of them would just sit all day long before tv and/or go to bar to get party. Small minority would get constantly drunk, rest would just get bored, maybe if they had free time they would go visit some places and do nothing productive. But from my nearest social circle most of people I know would not stop working. Looking at voting polls, my social circle is a minority.
1. Filling out what you would like to do on a questionnaire is not the same as actually doing so.
2. You and your friends are probably not like the average person.
3. You were probably raised with the idea that it's very important, both financially and socially, to have a job. It might be a lot harder to raise your kids with these values if they grow up in a world where working or not working has no financial impact.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say: If people didn't have to do work that gets paid, then they wouldn't do the work that society needs/wants them to do. To the degree that markets work, money incentivizes people to do work that society feels is important.
A farmer might still plant, but decide to plant flowers instead of food. Or maybe they would plant exotic fruits instead of staple foods.
A programmer might still program, but they might decide to play with algorithm problems instead of developing medical software.
Same here, I am a dev and it's not bad at all, but in reality if working for money wasn't necessary I could read, make music, play games and have fun with my family. We are frugal anyway, 60% of what I make is going towards buying real estate to rent out for a passive income and then I will be able to indulge in the above while living off it.
Live. More seriously: I'd pick up new hobbies, try things I never had time to try, get better at music and cooking, dedicate more time to my well being (yoga, meditation, 9 hours of proper sleep every single nights), spend more time with my soon to pass away grandparents, grow my own food, shorten my endless list of "books you definitely should read but you don't have time to", hike a lot, probably do some volunteering to keep me busy when I want to feel like a useful citizen. Heck I'd even go back to university just for the sake of learning.
Not working means that you reclaim 50%+ of your awake time, and not any 50%, the 50% during which you spend most of your energy. I'm already living on ~70% of the min wage of my country, and I don't feel like I'm restraining myself at all so it wouldn't be such a big deal.
> spend more time with my soon to pass away grandparents, grow my own food... do some volunteering to keep me busy when I want to feel like a useful citizen
