In my experience, people who ask "why aren't you working on a cure for cancer?" never had to build a HIPAA-compliant system, much less get something as harmless

In my experience, people who ask "why aren't you working on a cure for cancer?" never had to build a HIPAA-compliant system, much less get something as harmless as a nutritional supplement approved by the FDA. You can't disrupt a "serious" field with two college buddies and a few AWS instances. Anyway, this "bread and circus" discussion reminds me of all the authors -- Tolkien in particular -- who were accused of wasting their talent in escapist works.