I'll make a defense of pdf publishing here. The points the author makes are good, but also show why pdf has a role to play. Responsive design being the most difficult. Imagine you're producing a scientific paper, and it contains a big table. It's unreasonable to ask an author to figure out how make every table and figure display correctly on every screen.

Think of it this way. If you're publishing a pdf, then you master the formatting using your word processor (latex, word, what have you). On the other hand, if you're publishing on a responsive web site, then you really ought to have a content management system to guide you through the requirements of the platform. It's a significantly higher hurdle, both for the authors and the platform owners.