As a person who does freelancing and running the agency successfully, I can attest that "remote contractor living in exotic locales" is a recurring developer fantasy.

I have had quite a few people ask me how to get clients. I always struggle with the answer. What do you say referrals? It is a business like any other and you will need to exercise other skills besides software development.

In that sense, the article providing a different viewpoint is HN worthy as this is exactly where lots of entrepreneurial developers congregate.

Yeah, why the negativity?