So let's just say "I think it's not particularly reasonable for a tech conference to put anything besides tech to be top priority" is an understatement for me.
That being said I do disagree with this statement. Conferences are, at least for me, never primarily about learning about the latest hard core technical topics. They're about meeting and talking to people in my field who share my technical interests, sharing ideas and getting inspiration and talking hard problems over beers in the evening. They're as much, if not more, about the social as they are the purely technical. And even when it comes to presentations I'll take a fun and inspiring talk showing a novel take on something 'trivial' over someone reading their latest paper out loud while staring at their feet, no matter what the technical merits of that paper might be.