You can absolutely work for yourself. Google has customers too. If you work for Google, there is you, Google, and customers. If you work for you, there is you, you, and customers. You could metaphorically think of your customers as hiring and firing you, sure, in which case you have potentially millions of “bosses” and you can decide which ones you want to try to appeal to.

Running a start-up can be a pretty good gig, too.