'The author' had million other things to do instead of tracking AdWords policy changes every day. There was no email from Google announcing this major policy or explaining that 'free desktop software' means _all_ downloadable software. Even confirming that took two weeks because not one person from AdWords phone support support knew.
I didn't think of it this way but yes, some of the ways to expand were in front of me and were really obvious in retrospect. I can't believe I didn't think about selling to ISPs sooner. It was definitely the biggest blunder I made.
Guys, I didn't write that story to show off. Sorry if it comes out this way. Of course tons of people here did much more impressive things. I see a lot of people who want to do something like start a business or change career and they get discouraged by everyone saying it's hard and not worth doing. I just wanted to motivate them and tell them that it doesn't matter what others are saying.
And I had a girlfriend at 14 who by the end of high school messed me so much that I spent first 2 years in college avoiding girls completely. But that's not a Hacker News story ;)
I don't think it sounded like you were showing off at all. It was a cool story. I think a lot of people are just inferring that you were implying that your story was unique (that's a lot of assuming going on there) and it's not, so they were balking at it because they've had similar experiences or what have you. Sure, it may be BTDT to a lot of folks (brought back fond memories for me), but when you're 14 and doing it and discovering for the first time it, it's awesome and that is inspiring. I think we sometimes forget how exciting learning and just putting ourselves out there can be.
I'm not impressed as much as jealous. Sure, maybe your program was very crude by most standards, but the amount of stuff you did figure out on your own was great! It sounds like you had a lot of fun in the process.
Figuring things out mostly independently, without a teacher telling you what to do next, is among life's most sublime and transient joys. I sometimes regret the knowledge I've obtained the "easy" way, because I know I'll never have the experience of discovering it myself. But alas, ars longa, vita brevis.
