Devil's advocate: In the post, he himself says he would've earned more by doing a show for HBO/Comedy Central/other (also note that he mentions, but doesn't factor in the cost of his own time in putting this all together).

Given that a lot of people purchased this only to support "the experiment" (i.e. they might not buy the next time he or someone else does this), does this really demonstrate the success of selling independently?

Yes, he still owns the material and can resell it to Netflix or whoever. Yes, he will continue to earn money from it. But I imagine most of his true fan base will have already purchased it by now, so how many people are there really left to reach?

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see this all become the standard way of distributing content. I think it will eventually happen.

But what does it say that today's most most popular working comedian makes less money selling independently?

EDIT: Based on these numbers, yes, Louis CK will end up making more money this way. But to say he hasn't done any publicity to this point is stretching the truth - he's promoted it all over his Twitter, gone on Reddit, did an interview on NPR, etc. It's not like he just dropped this out of the blue without warning. But my overall point isn't whether it will work out financially for Louis CK (clearly, it will) - it's that the circumstances of this business model work for Louis CK, but not necessarily others following in his footsteps.

EDIT2: Also, it's not as if others going the traditional route wouldn't make money in perpetuity. Maybe Eddie Murphy only got a standard fee for his Raw standup special, but surely he's getting residuals from DVD sales.