The author explicitly, expressly contextualized the usage by including the example "profitable since day 1." Which everyone understands, first, not to mean literally within 8 hours of when you started working on it, but more the first few days or even couple of weeks, and secondly, everybody understands it refers to the direct expenses of the project. There is no misunderstanding. There is no miscommunication. Everyone knows you're talking about cash-flow and hosting costs.