Literally addresses NONE of the issues presented in the piece he's responding to. No one questioned the upvote system and how much each vote counted, though I'd say that's still dubious. When insiders exist to get your product on the home page and no one who doesn't use that method gets on the home page, and you have coordinated launches using SPECIFIC TIMES that it will be on the front page, you don't get to come out in a medium post with a cute cat and go "But, we didn't do that!"
As I've said previously on here I'm a capitalist and I respect greed, but I don't tolerate liars. If you going to build and insiders promotion site, then do it, and own it. Don't backpedal when someone calls you out.