Because I can write. Whether people love or hate what I say, I'm at least entertaining and informative at the same time. Even if my essays are full of hilarious bile I still make sure that there's a kernel of awesome information that's very true, or an informed opinion I can defend.

As for my credibility in technical matters, well I do make stuff people use, but more importantly I make stuff that helps other people be awesome. That's my niche.

Among other things, he wrote mongrel, the only non-terrible rails server for many years.

He's shipped a lot of useful code, including the Mongrel web server.

This post specifically is arguable. But Zed's an excellent programmer and teacher. I even heard a first person account that he is a very pleasant guy.