8 hours is a full days work.
Most people only have a couple of hours to themselves after working 8 hours + commuting, buying/preparing/eating food, ablutions, taking care of various chores etc.
Is 10 the norm where you are? That is very saddening. Where are you btw? During/after the industrial revolution many workers fought hard and died just to get the the working day down to 8 hours (and not 12 or more which is what the industrialists wanted)
It's pretty common for people in SFBA to work 10 hours per day. Something about signaling that you're eager and a team player and want to advance etc. 8 or 10 hours doesn't particularly matter. My point is that even in some of the most competitive markets in the world, people do just fine with doing a full day's worth of work, then going home and having a life.
OP seems to be under the impression that this is somehow not possible.
The trend among engineers of doing a full day's worth of work then going home and working even more on side projects, open source, or whatever is a whole 'nother bag of worms. I'm not sure why we do that. You wouldn't expect a marketer to go home and do some marketing in their spare time. Or a business person to make some slide decks for fun.
Us engineers are weird.
edit: Why is this getting downvoted? Is it really that unimaginable on HackerNews that one could work full-time and still have time for hobbies, friends, and family?
The author of this talk actually specifically mentions the phenomenon of software engineers going home and working on more software, for free. People are motivated, and the reason why makes sense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
