I'm not disagreeing with the author here, but as someone old enough to remember the rise of XML as a data transmission format (and Erik Naggum's masterful rant against it[0]), it's strange because historically speaking both XML and JSON were also popularized as more "human readable".
I would be curious how many HNers (and even more so newer developers outside the HN-o-sphere) have worked extensively with or even written parsers for binary (or otherwise non-human readable) file formats. Writing an MP3 metadata parser used to be a standard exercise for devs looking to level up their programming skills a bit.
It personally feels weird to me that we would keep pushing for more "human readable" data formats when the world is increasingly removed from one where non-programmer humans need to read data. Keep your data in whatever format make sense and let software handle transforming it to a more readable or more efficient format depending on the needs, even if humans can't read it (they shouldn't need to!).
On top of all that my experience has been that JSON leads to more atrocities than XML (while fully agreeing with all of Erik Naggum's points about that) and YAML creates even worse horrors than JSON. It seems we'll soon be approaching eldritch horrors if we continue to pursue human readable data exchange formats.