Or, it could be inspiring them, as it obviously is if you read through many of the comments here. They can say, hey, he went from making basically nothing a few years ago and now it's making a lot of money. This is possible if I work at it.
I just recently had a very similar conversation with a younger friend who is in school. I showed him a detailed look at my business and what it takes (and importantly) what it doesn't necessarily take to make money. This is extraordinarily useful information to someone who hasn't tried going out on their own yet. People can and do make lots of money selling software. I think it's really awesome to know that someone is making 40k from Bingo Card software.
I really think people should leave ruswick to himself. He seems to live a life of not seeing anything good in others work. So people should not bother responding to him. Read his blog and you would see some negativity about app.net, branch
Another reason why you shouldn't respond to him, is that rather than take people's thought onboard that his negativity is unfounded in this instance, since Patrick did thesame when earning $1000, he is rather seeing it as never say anything negative about Patio11 on HN, which is not the thrust of people's response to him. See his tweet on that
http://twitter.com/DanRuswick/status/285136357037326336.
People that want to hate will see reason to hate. People that want to be bitter with whatever positive post others make or whatever success they experience, will find a reason to do and would justify it, just as ruswick is doing.
It is okay to criticize patio11 or anyone if you are not blinded by pessimism and jealousy.
I just recently had a very similar conversation with a younger friend who is in school. I showed him a detailed look at my business and what it takes (and importantly) what it doesn't necessarily take to make money. This is extraordinarily useful information to someone who hasn't tried going out on their own yet. People can and do make lots of money selling software. I think it's really awesome to know that someone is making 40k from Bingo Card software.