I kind of agree with what I interpret the article as saying - It was fun to work in the Ethereum space when people where there to have fun and there wasn’t so much money involved.

It’s certainly not fun to contribute to Geth nowadays when every bug can have huge consequences, and the community constantly demands more performance so they can have lower costs. Peter was very clear about the burnout this causes.

You can simplify that to - It’s fun to work on things when there isn’t pressure to work on them.

I’ve run into this multiple times in my life, including in the blockchain space, but it isn’t really anything specific to Ethereum. Though I do feel like the author has a limited view and is attributing this to be something Ethereum specific.