That's because you've redefined "profit" to "usable profit," showing that profit is not the goal in and of itself.
My point, and the point of the author of this blog post, is that nobody is motivated by "haha numbers go up." We're motivated by wanting to do things with our profit - our goal is not to accumulate money but to spend it (either now or in the future).
Maybe a better example is, if someone were making $100,000 now, and they had the opportunity to move to a country where they'd make $199,000 but the cost of living were twice as expensive, would they take it?
Then that's not really making $199,000 a year. They'd be making $99,500 which is less than the profit-maximizing scenario that pays $100,000