Is there some reason that a guy who made a bingo card creator has any real authority here? That probably sounds harsh, but I don't really understand why he feels he is in a position to criticize a very good product.
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First of all, the post is full of constructive, actionable advice. Does the advice seem good? Then that's all that matters! The post stands by itself even without knowing who patio11 is.
Personal attacks like this literally add nothing while at the same time actively stifling future discussions. You should never have a personal attack unless there is a very good, concrete reason for it to be relevant and you're still polite about it. Anything else is simply both rude and unconstructive.
Second of all, he's somebody who both has a successful business in a vaguely similar niche and used to be a successful consultant optimizing others businesses. That is, he was a professional doing exactly this sort of criticism! And people were paying him for it. Because it's extremely useful.
I legitimately have no idea what business he has talking about tarsnap this way. I clicked his "about" link and it said he made bingo card creator software.
He has a ton of HN karma, so I expected downvotes, but I'm still puzzled as to why he would make this post.
You're saying he's had success in something similar to online backups? What was it?
FWIW, he is probably the most well-known CRO expert there has ever been. He has exactly the authority needed to write this post.
[edit: "CRO expert" is too strong, as noted below. I was thinking something "SaaSy". Basically, in this community, he is the expert in some forms of SaaS marketing/pricing.]
If we add a lot of constrains like "Software! No wait, B2B software! For geeks!", for each constraint you add the pool of talent gets rather sharply smaller and my confidence that there exist lots of better options than me accordingly decreases.