I think you are being downvoted for being so rude and straight but I think you make the point here.
Tarsnap is shooting at the wrong target: everything about it seems to be designed to appeal geeks: the webpage style, the humor (the picodollars thing), the code to be compiled (!). Basically tarsnap is targeting the people that will never pay for this service. I am a geeky enough to recognize myself as possible target and therefore geeky enough to setup the same thing using 10 minutes of bash, truecrypt and S3 for half the prize.