The article makes much of the pairing of antibiotic production genes and antibiotic resistance genes. They often occur on a single plasmid and are passed around together.

But there must be different facets to antibiotic resistance genes, because a bacterium that is producing an antibiotic needs to avoid being poisoned by it. Perhaps some genes produce antibiotic resistance by coding for proteins that metabolize the antibiotic. Such genes are not helpful when paired with antibiotic production because they are destroying the antibiotic as fast as the other genes produce it.

By contrast, some antibiotics work by destroying the cell walls of bacteria. Presumably some antibiotic resistance genes work by coding for resistant cell walls. And a bacterium that is producing such an antibiotic had better have such resistance genes or it will end up destroying its own cell walls.

The article is silent on the differences between antibiotic resistance genes that a producer needs, to survive its own antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance genes that a producer mustn't have, to avoid sabotaging its own production.

The article raises the issue of mutualism between different species of bacteria, with shared resistance and production genes letting the diverse community resist outsiders. Perhaps that is already a complicated story without adding in different kinds of resistance genes.