Contracting provides an immense amount of flexibility that FTE's don't have - from the amount I can put in tax advantaged retirements, the amount I can bill, my ability to maintain multiple client loads and the ability to fire my clients - it'd be hard pressed to be FTE somewhere looking for 9-5 ever again.

On call? Bill. Useless meetings? Bill. Travel time? Bill. Overtime? Bill. Waiting for the IT department to get something done? Bill. Don't have enough work but you booked for a 40 hour week? Bill and work on another clients stuff. Clients infrastructure is a mess and they refuse to take advise? Some combination of bill for the time, fire the client, or suggest additional time to focus on their issues. Don't feel like working today? Don't bill, go walk the dog.

I'm able to estimate my value on the market in near real-time, get cash instead of theoretical optional value, select clients on any metric I choose, and being able to live (virtually) anywhere I want in the world while maintaining a client base wherever I want - it's a pretty awesome gig. If I want to take a summer off? I just offboard clients and turn off inbounds until I'm ready to take on more.

Why do you still FTE? Surely you should be able to fill a book of clients at this point :)

Not sure if it's the case in Sweden, but you can often make much better money contracting in Europe.

Some people much prefer the contract lifestyle it can offer. It's not entirely strange to be honest.

Generally, it's to pay less taxes and make more money without holidays and sickness and protections developers rarely need

Ironically the author really needed a union rep of course.

contract work pays much better in many parts of the world, in some cases double.

That makes it an easy equation to solve.