I agree with you. However sometimes it feels as if building a lifestyle business takes the same effort (in the beginning) as building a large business.
For example think about all the small web development companies with 3-6 people in their teams. That is a lifestyle business. On the other end think of Instagram, 10M users, 6 people. Or Weebly, millions of sites, 3-4 people. Or Craigslist hundreds of million in revenue, 30ish people.
I totally agree with you, they take the same effort at the beginning. Because of that, I think a lot of people figure they might as well swing for the fences.
I think the point is that it's fine to swing for the fences, just make sure you don't skip other 'lifestyle' opportunities in the mean time. You may never get your homerun pitch, nothing wrong with a base hit. You watch enough pitches go by, you end up striking out.
For example think about all the small web development companies with 3-6 people in their teams. That is a lifestyle business. On the other end think of Instagram, 10M users, 6 people. Or Weebly, millions of sites, 3-4 people. Or Craigslist hundreds of million in revenue, 30ish people.