It's not about identity, it's about choice. Alex has made his choice, now he's trying to force it on others as if it is in fact gospel. I don't care what peopl

It's not about identity, it's about choice. Alex has made his choice, now he's trying to force it on others as if it is in fact gospel. I don't care what people call me. I don't care personally that Alex slammed my business. I know what I'm doing is right for me, because I get to reap the rewards every day. But what I do care about is that this further stifles the discussion of choice. There is so little presented about bootstrapping. There are so few role models. It's an information wasteland, like I wrote in "Drawing Back the Curtain": http://unicornfree.com/2011/drawing-back-the-curtain/ http://unicornfree.com/2011/drawing-back-the-curtain/ Most people don't realize that "tech business" and "funded startup" aren't the same thing. Most people truly believe that they couldn't start a company on the side. They may believe that they are a caged lion because they have a job (as per your metaphor [1]), but that there is nothing for them between being a caged lion forever and having to have some kind of earth-shattering idea that will get funded by somebody so they can develop it full time just to see where it goes. THAT is what Justin Vincent is railing against: the lack of choice, the "soaking in it" issue, the conflation of "tech business" and "funded startup". The lack of apparent choice. That's what I write against, too. Justin never wrote about "This is what you should do," he said "This is what you see everywhere but look, there's a totally different way." Alex, on the other hand, slammed my work as an individual. And told us all that merely seeking happiness is not enough for the world, because he's a secular humanist. Tack-y. Chilling effect. Just like labeling somebody else's business a "lifestyle business" just because it is bootstrapped. That is the core problem: the attempt to discredit anyone who does things differently. The attempt to stomp out anyone trying to pull the "norm" over from one extreme. Labeling -- such as "oh, that's just a lifestyle business" -- is a way of trying to shut down the discussion. And witnessing THAT behavior is why everyone is so engaged. [1] By the way, if we're talking about matters of identity... caged lion? Hackers are like painters? If those aren't appeals to identity, I don't know what is.