Is he seriously saying that nobody needs to use large matrices in these days of internet data? Google uses online implementations of some algorithms because they can't hold the whole matrices in memory at the same time. Maybe Google is not the average hobbyist, but hell yeah there are some large data sets out there for free, exhibit A the World Wide Web.
I don't necessarily disagree with him about this, but I do take issue with his disdain of academic or hobbyist projects.
The internet is increasingly providing free access to very large and very interesting data sets, and so of course we're seeing more and more people take advantage of this to do interesting things with this data. And as working with these sorts of datasets becomes more and more common, it is silly to think that we should have to reinvent the wheel every time instead of having tools evolve around their uses.
Moreover, we're in an age where a couple people can successfully take an idea from a hobby project and turn it into a working business with little more than time, effort, and knowledge. Given this, I would ask where the line is drawn between "I need to work with this data" and "what sorts of cool things can I do with this data". My personal belief is that the line is very fine and blurry, and that the work of "jerkoff hobbyists" today is likely to lead to the serious uses of the future.
