> In fact, I don’t think I’ve cared about prestige since 2010

Yeah, right. We're all wired to seek prestige. If we don't get it we wither and sulk. He just figured out that he's unlikely to get it via traditional means, and decided to seek it via an alternative route. Perhaps there are extremely rare mentally atypical people who really don't care about prestige, but it almost certainly isn't you or me or the blogger. Be careful about the lies you tell yourself.