Reminds me of rtm's chapter in the book CYBERPUNK by Katie Hafner, pg's in there too. Except neither of them are now broke and running a phone stall in Manila.
His dad was Chief Scientist of the NSA National Computer Security Center at the time :)
My point is - it was quite exciting and interesting job for early 2000s, probably paid ok too. There was some software to crack and occasionally write something. Nowadays the hardware is much cheaper when adjusted for inflation, but people still need the service. Jailbreak scene continues to exist too.
Also transitioning from writing a simple virus into production software is a long long way.