I’m surprised the article didn’t draw an analogy to a traffic jam. The counterintuitive response of decreased throughput from increased flow reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess's_paradox
Interestingly, it’s an entirely different class of flow! A traffic jam is akin to a shockwave in compressible flow (e.g. gas), here the article talks about (incompressible) liquids.