Great article. I personally put the blame on mobile devices and the "mobilification" of every computing application. Mobile-first mentality saw application designers ruthlessly culling anything that caused even the slightest friction. The result: slipstreamed applications that do the least necessary to appeal to the broadest audience.

Sadly, the mobilification mindset even sometimes impacts desktop-first applications, what few remain. The attack vector of choice is Electron hosting a mobile-first web app with a middling desktop breakpoint.

Ultimately, the author captures the same phenomenon, but I personally think it traces more specifically to the rise of mobile devices.