I think your analysis here is suffering from confirmation bias regarding the negative feedback you've recently received.
Looking at the history of your essays on reddit, it seems clear that a) some people like them and some don't, and b) the average redditor likes some of them and dislikes others.
In my case, I've certainly agreed strongly with some of your essays but thought others missed the mark.
Although many commentators seemed quite riled about it, one of your best essays was "Beating the Averages". I read it and immediately recognized myself as a classic Blub programmer. In fact, I decided to cut the cord with VB and start learning Python as a result - and am I ever glad I did that. (Eventually, I may even try my hand at Lisp. Thanks to Python, I already find myself looking at data and seeing lists everywhere.)
Of course it's possible to nitpick whether expressive power exists along a continuum, but in a broad sense, the essay has the clunk of truth. It also necessarily discredits most languages - and by extension, most programmers - so a certain amount of outrage is to be expected.
Even so, it's clear that I'm not the only Blub programmer who read it and decided to try and learn from it instead of barricading myself further inside my suite of Blub idioms.
On the other hand, your essay "Mind the Gap" begs the question by asserting that market value = value and then justifying vast pay differences based on market value. The very issue at hand is whether the unregulated market is good at assigning value to labour; the huge compensation packages offered late last year to the executives of Bear Stearns would seem to cast this assertion in some doubt. Frankly, the entire essay smells a bit self-serving.
These are just two examples. My point is that I don't hate you reflexively, and I always enjoy the push and pull of ideas, which you undertake with gusto.
I do think a lot of people were seriously disappointed with Arc when it came out, especially after all the hype about a 'hundred-year language' had built it up to mythical proportions. To the extent that you spent years dropping such teasers, you have to accept some responsibility for the backlash.
You also have to recognize that if a group of people who like you followed you to News.YC, the bias may actually inhere in this space, not on reddit. That is, by surrounding yourself with people who agree with you, you may be distorting your reaction to a community not composed of what we may pejoratively call PG fanbois.
The most important thing, of course, is that the push and pull of ideas and arguments continues. Don't pick up your toys and go home just because some people disagree with you. In fact, honing your arguments on skeptics can only ultimately improve them.
I would say it's about being willing to pay a premium to live in a dense, vibrant city with all that goes along with it.