I don't agree at all with the author; imho it's all the about the app! The user doesn't want to have to choose from a rich portfolio of (desktop!) clients; they want a mobile client that can do everything that Whatsapp/Telegram etc can do.
Conversations on Android comes close, but there is no such client on iOS.
This is in no way news, so I don't really get where the author is coming from?
insert your argument about why you don’t understand people moved away from XMPP just to reimplement XMPP.