Considering phk works as a developer for a very popular HTTP based application (Varnish) and contributed to competing specs for HTTP2 he's hardly a pandering blogger. He's an expert annoyed that the improvements in standards in his field are absurdly slow and perfectly entitled to voice his ire.
He is no doubt perfectly entitled to rant. I'm also fairly confident that phk has contributed to more important projects vital to the tech ecosystem than I ever will. I simply argue that there are more constructive and productive ways to go about pointing out a protocol's flaws.
It's a pet peeve of mine when people just fling this sort of accusation about as if every word-count limited column isn't any good unless it's 20 times longer and basically includes half of Wikipedia transitively. It's a column in a trade magazine. There isn't a place for a detailed technical discussion there, so complaining that there isn't one is complaining about something that can't be fixed.
Besides, cards on the table, I think he's basically correct, cynicism and all here. Sometimes the right answer is to just say no, and failure to say no is not good thing when that is what is called for.
Oh, it's this guy again? He already stirs up a bunch of outrage (and zero useful contribution) every year like clockwork by ranting about build systems. Is he "entitled" to a rant? Sure. But he should surely have realised by now that nothing positive will come of it, and there are better ways to actually improve things.
