I think HN is still small web. It's custom-written by one or a few people, doesn't make money, isn't trying to take over the world.
Uhm... It's run by Y Combinator. I wouldn't call that, not making money and not trying to take over the world, on the contrary. Traditional seed vc money firm.
It has "users" and they "rent" space on their servers and you don't own your data and it is censored and your activity can be mined - I think these are the main factors the article is interested in.
HN is owned by Y Combinator which funds surveillance capitalist startups, so absolutely not.
You could host your own HN/Reddit and get most if not all of the same features.