I can't judge the flexibility of your degree, but I stretched my full-time master's degree from 3 full-time to 7 part-time semesters while working part-time on IT-projects (both in an IT consultancy and the entrepreneurial center of another university) on the side (also in Germany, but a university of applied sciences instead).
I wouldn't say that's "dragging things out" like you said, I consider it more like doing a master's degree on my own terms while keeping up my motivation and passion for the field I'm in. With the previous SWE experience you mentioned it should be possible to look for a working student position fitting your interests.
I can see the micro-aspect as most of these target niche markets, are run by solo-founders, etc., but what differentiates these from traditional small businesses other than the fact they sell digital products and services?
Love it, will you do a write-up on how to replicate this with other sources? I'm currently analyzing both Indie Hackers and StartupsForTheRestOfUs Interview Transcriptions and this could be a fun analysis!
Love it, as a solo dev I'm gravitating more towards a kit that also offers its components library as a code equivalent (looking at Tailwind UI right now), but I can definitely see the value in this for actual designers!
Makes me want to step up my Figma-game, did you do write-ups or do you have recommendations on how to build up the skills required to craft something like this?
Well it's not WordPress and you're missing out on the plugin-ecosystem (and there aren't that many themes yet) but the closest I know that fits your vision would be Publii [0].
https://makingmusic.ableton.com/