I think his arguments apply more closely to SQLite databases. They're not directly human readable, but boy are there a lot of tools for working with them.
It's also worth noting that SQLite can ingest CSV files into memory and perform queries on them directly - if the files are not too large, it's possible to bypass the sqlite format entirely.
Can git attributes help in this case? It allows you to teach git how to diff binary files using external tools. Here [0] is a demonstration for teaching git to produce an "image diff" for *.png files using exiftool. You can do something similar for *.sqlite files by adding these 3 lines [1] [2]. The sqlite3 cli needs to be installed.
Alternatively, there's a tool that might also fit the bill called datafold/data-diff [3]. I'm pretty sure I originally heard of it on a HN thread so those comments may offer even more alternative solutions.
[0]: https://youtu.be/Md44rcw13k4?t=540 [the relevant timestamp is @ 9:00]
[1]: https://github.com/kriansa/dotfiles/blob/7a8c1b11b06378b8ca8...
[2]: https://github.com/kriansa/dotfiles/blob/7a8c1b11b06378b8ca8...
https://github.com/dolthub/dolt
Would love to hear how it addresses your use case or falls short.