Perhaps also worth adding that the linked article (the one titled "Citation Needed") itself originally had hundreds of comments beneath it, many quite argumentative, which seem to be now missing - I guess lost in a site update. It was a very contentious article.
I'm sympathetic to its author's approach - we talk about indexing and it's a strangely fascinating topic but the history of it hasn't been all that well dug out. We do indeed tend to respond to articles like this by going "well obviously [x]-based is good because" - you can see that at work in this discussion here - but those are not necessarily the true historical reasons. But I think the author made a leap too far, the article was a bit too brittle, and it landed in a slightly too argumentative spot.
I'm sympathetic to its author's approach - we talk about indexing and it's a strangely fascinating topic but the history of it hasn't been all that well dug out. We do indeed tend to respond to articles like this by going "well obviously [x]-based is good because" - you can see that at work in this discussion here - but those are not necessarily the true historical reasons. But I think the author made a leap too far, the article was a bit too brittle, and it landed in a slightly too argumentative spot.