Minoxidil is barely effective, especially for something that became widely available. It got approved in the 80s as a topical version of a hypertension drug, and IIRC the McStudy that supported it was funded by the original patent holder.
I don't think anyone had much of a problem with it, as the market was previously 100% snake oil, and this sort of thing happens even with drugs for serious diseases. If you benefit from the placebo effect and stop stressing out about it, then maybe the drug really "works"?
Since the discovery in the article is pretty much a mirror of the story of Minoxidil, I would default to being skeptical of the claims.
The 5-alpha-reductase (5ar) inhibitors [1] like finasteride and dutasteride do work. The 5ar enzyme converts testosterone into dihydrotestosterone (DHT.) Over time, DHT causes sensitive follicles to shrink further and further and the hair growth phase to get shorter and shorter, until it reaches zero. People whose skin is genetically less DHT-sensitive go bald later in life or not at all.
However, the inhibitors have systemic reach, and their long-term consequences are hard to study. It is (was?) believed that DHT is not practically useful in adults, but this was partly based on research on people who are 5ar-deficient due to a genetic mutation. They also have a less-than-pretty clinical picture [2] because they had no DHT when it mattered (in the womb) so the safety argument has always been rather tentative.
If you're balding, you should ask yourself how much it really matters to you. Are you willing to take a serious drug for decades, with less-than-well-understood systemic consequences? No one will really be able to answer your what-ifs.
Some people really stress out about it, and I'd say they are good candidates. But if you don't really care all that much, you're much better off letting Darwin take the wheel on this one.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_5α-reductase_inhibitor...