I think you are undervaluing yourself. Programming can be a well paid activity if you know your value.
I know it takes time to do a startup and has risks involved etc, but don't accept a shitty life, because people will take advantage of that.
My two cents.
Yes you are right making friends with other developers will be a great help. I'm not sure if I want to fully commit to game dev, as I also have other interests. But it's something that I've been interested in for quite a few years.
You can play my first published games at https://xcrypt.itch.io/,
or on https://www.kongregate.com/games/Xcrypt
Tell me what you think. Note I'm more of a game programmer than a full rounded developer. I want to learn the other skills too but I wanna work mainly around creating good games by programming them well. My next projects will be an RTS and an arena combat game, I'll make them a bit bigger and more polished, with multiplayer, enemies, game mechanics and graphics.