Transaction irreversability is the whole point of the "peer to peer electronic cash system": "Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments... cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions ... What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party. Transactions that are computationally impractical to reverse would protect sellers from fraud" from the opening lines of the Bitcoin white paper.

So Bitcoin was designed for micropayments, and irreversability is a feature to reduce the friction. That is fine because it was intended for "small casual transactions" which very few people are going to invest the time and effort into disputing. It even looked like it might be successful as a micropayment system at first, given small Bitcoin transactions were initially processed without any transaction fees.

The problem is that it has clearly failed as a "peer to peer electronic cash system". It is now used primarily for large transactions, which you absolutely do need consumer protections for if you are a legitimate user (indeed the fact that there aren't consumer protections has made the space so popular with fraudsters, scammers etc.). And as others have commented, the newer cryptocurrencies which attempt to offer such protections end up being worse in every conceivable way from the traditional solutions. Leading back to the original article - is there any legitimate point to cryptocurrencies nowadays?