[dbattaglia]

> That was a painful read, sorry.

Agreed. The article felt to me like a reaction to the common refrain that, in tech, you can either be a founder or you can be a wage slave, and the former is clearly better. The product itself is secondary; the only important decision is, do you go the route of passive income ("lifestyle business"), bootstrapped business or VC-backed startup. As someone squarely in the latter camp of boring corporate coder, it can be hard to muster up much empathy, which I realize is a bit ugly of me.

The part I did find interesting was their discussion towards the middle of their free browser extension, and how the joy of others using their creation was exhilarating, while at the same time the feeling of negative criticism can be crushing. As someone who got into professional coding first by uploading code-like creations (the Native Instruments Reaktor user library) and having the same experience, I can vouch that this is the best feeling I've experienced coding and building things, and the criticism can actually help you learn to deal with such things better. It was unfortunate to me that the article then went back into some of the uglier parts about chasing money, clicks and SEO.