Exporting text as paths in SVG makes the text non-selectable and non-copyable. What SVG should have done, is to allow specifying both text and paths to draw the letters. This is one of multiple problems with SVG.
You can embed the font file into the SVG if you want the text to remain selectable. If the size increase worries you, you can strip unused glyphs from the font file before embedding it.
Yes, PDF is what I really want, but apparently it didn't get the "<img> tag treatment" so, we have to leave with "SVG with text as paths, and perfect layout" or "SVG with embedded fonts (a subset if you're brave), and selectable text".
So the latter would be the best, correct? Isn’t it worse without text selection if a user wants to copy?
Indeed, how is killing text better than having it render differently on other platforms?
The article said they initially used PNG screenshots so I guess it still works at being better than that.