So let's get this straight. You're saying that a surgeon can't create a profitable online business if the total profit from it to him is less than if he had spent the same time practicing surgery?
we're not talking about whether it's "worth it" for him, we're talking about from the point of view of whether the online business can be called profitable to an outside investor. Nobody cares about your unpaid sunk development costs.
> Nobody cares about your unpaid sunk development costs.
Not if they happened a year or six months ago, but if your unpaid sunk development costs are happening every day, then you're not profitable. You're not profitable until you're paying everyone who is working for you something relatively close to the wage they could be making as a regular employee somewhere else.
we're not talking about whether it's "worth it" for him, we're talking about from the point of view of whether the online business can be called profitable to an outside investor. Nobody cares about your unpaid sunk development costs.