i think you misunderstood what he say, what he means its for example, let say you need to DDOS someone or some server, if you go search for this kind of services they are expensive.
normally people who have botnet use them with activities that bring money to pocket =), so people who have their own botnet rent their services and of course it have more quality compared to a script kiddie that build their own botnet.
my opinion about this "challenge" it is just a marketing technique, lets say they suceed, this of course will bring more clients and in end, more money =)
things like this, could be usefull not only to products became better but to hackers work around and find new ways of breaking it.
this is the market, in end its all about money.