Comment by jll29
"Brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough."
-- Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
But for every smart observation there are exceptions: Fields medal recipient (well, he won it but rejected to take it) G. Perelman (born 1966 and jobless last time I checked) has almost no publications or citations to show. But he will be remembered forever for proving the Poincaré conjecture ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman ).
Someone Ph.D track in my research group was paying tutors and having homework performed for them.
While it is certainly possible that the role falls on people who want it enough, there simply aren't a lot of people financially able to do 5-7 additional years of school on a meager research stipend, esp. if they are graduating their bachelor's program with debt. You can buoy yourself with side work or internships, but what if the thing you're passionate about isn't something that excites industry?
G. Perelman is a recluse. He sees the point of mathematicians is to advance math, not mathematicians. He's so much the opposite of what this blog post seems to shoot for.