>Most of all: Have complete control of your destiny. No investors, no bosses, etc.

Here's a useful guideline to add to what you said: unless some person makes way more than the Basecamp founders (e.g. through some unicorn deal or whatever) and enjoys the same freedom to shape their product, then they have absolutely no leg to stand on to criticize their model much less to sneer.

I mean, some startup multi-millionaire/billionaire sneering at "lifestyle businesses" I can understand (though not agree with).

But some ramen eating wannabe sneering at them, it's inane, since the majority don't end up nowhere near as succesful.