What Doctorow keeps repeating is about Doctorow and Doctorow alone. Other writers don't have fat speaking fees and blog site ad revenues to live off. I know the Cult of Doctorow  - Doctorowroids? - find this hard to believe but one lone individual's experience does not apply to everyone else in the writing business. 

Go find someone else earning a living like that  - or try to doing it yourself. You'll soon discover how illusory all those infantile dreams are - and frankly damaging to the rest of the industry in that they clearly encourage book theft.