This is nonsense. In any economy, most companies don't make money when they're first starting. Even pizza places. That doesn't make them "projects" rather than companies.
Here's the message I take from this: get serious or go home.<p>After reading the first couple of lines I didn't want to like this article (I'm getting a little tired of everyone whining about how hard it will be -- it was always going to be hard), but a little later in I grooved on it.<p>Starting a startup isn't just about putting up a website; you've got to kick ass 8 days a week building a business, and yeah, it's going to be harder now so it's a good time to start taking what you're doing seriously or realize that you're just playing around.
Don't worry yourself with the semantics; this is extremely sound advice. VCs are starting to say roughly the same thing nowadays too, albeit in a way with somewhat less finality. It's a shame it took a huge economic hoo-ha for people to start using common sense again, though.
Uhm.. What? Someone can't call themselves a startup when they take all the risk of actually, err you know, starting something up? Taking the risk, forgoing income and pursuing their passion?