The negative reaction to Patrick's design template is so meta.
It completely proves his point the power of "wrong" design.
Everybody forgot all the brilliant things Patrick said because they didn't like the design.
And that's his point!
Send a non-technical guy who's ass is truly on the line to Tarsnap and, sorry, he's going to have a negative "blink" gut reaction.
If you've ever built a SAAS to any scale, you'll know that is true. Sad. But 100% accurate.
Stripe's original UX to me was a better example of where Tarsnap could go (vs. even the current stripe site):
https://web.archive.org/web/20111007130738/https://stripe.co...
Headline, button, 5 relevant "benefits"
Then a link to start, documentation, and get help.
Almost exactly what Patrick illustrates before he loses us with a rushed design.