You need money to live. As for your other comments, I think you're misquoting me.
I'm not sure how I'm misquoting you here - you very clearly and plainly said you assume 90%+ of people who say anything other than money is their motivation are lying to you and themselves.
As for your comment that you need money to live - of course you do. That's a far cry from your statement, which is that people are solely motivated by money. The typical HN reader likely makes above the average salary, so they're already past the point of working for enough of a salary to live, and they're in the disposable income territory.