Why? The answer is ultimately spiritual and cultural (note the shared etymology of "culture"[0], "cult"[1] and "cultivate"[2]). The article does point to the consumerist ethos as a factor. This is true. Consumerism is a vicious and degrading religion. But what drives consumerism is a fundamental restlessness and malaise characteristic of modernity that stands behind both work-for-work's-sake—the world of "total work"—and the pursuit of the myriad empty recreations on offer. Both are forms of escape and marks of a diseased soul. You can't fix the problem simply by reforming workplace practices alone, though that could, of course, help because it would at least create the space needed to pursue leisure. But by simply bandaging the symptoms, we avoid trying to determine the root cause. We persist in the same pathological condition. Truncate work in the absence of leisure and that space will be filled with either some other work or more recreation.
(N.b. I recommend Josef Pieper's "Leisure: The Basis of Culture"[3] if you want to understand what leisure is and how it differs from recreation.)
[0] https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=culture
[1] https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=cult