He said he intended to crowdsource his retirement. That's really no different than what every HN-inspired startup-jockey is doing.
Plenty of people have incredibly inane or uninspiring startups that end up bringing in enough money to retire on. The way things work (perhaps unfortunately) is that any individual subjective or objective measure of someone's idea is not what matters. What matters is if people pay or not.
If he can entice people to pay for his retirement directly, it's no different than enticing people to pay for a customer loyalty or group discount startup. Perhaps you're right that this is "quite depressing/worrying," but I think a critique of his methods would need to include something much larger.
Plenty of people have incredibly inane or uninspiring startups that end up bringing in enough money to retire on. The way things work (perhaps unfortunately) is that any individual subjective or objective measure of someone's idea is not what matters. What matters is if people pay or not.
If he can entice people to pay for his retirement directly, it's no different than enticing people to pay for a customer loyalty or group discount startup. Perhaps you're right that this is "quite depressing/worrying," but I think a critique of his methods would need to include something much larger.