From a developer/business point of view, there's no reason to use a more restrictive GPL dependency if it's not clearly "superior" to a permissively-licensed one.
The article makes a case that this will eventually push GPL out of the mainstream. No one will use GPL because they "have to" (which is the whole premise of copyleft!). It will only be used by enthusiasts
If the business wants to develop non open source software, then having them not use the GPLd project and thus profit off the free labour of others is a wonderful outcome.
Your argument is in terms of "fairness". But most users don't care about fairness. They care about better software. I'll use a permissively-licensed project if it's better. Most people will use a proprietary project if it's better.
The article makes a point that permissively-licenced projects have the best survival characteristics, and that's why most (quality) software will eventually be permissively-licensed, while GPL will fade into obscurity and will be used only by enthusiasts why care about fairness more than they care about the actual quality of the software that they use.
> But most users don't care about fairness. They care about better software.
Users care about convenience and familiarity, then perhaps (perceived) functionality. People who care more about quality are a niche, not only in the software industry. Prioritizing quality means higher cost in some way, even if it's just effort to research the best choice.
> Most people will use a proprietary project if it's better.
Most people don't even compare available choices. Usually they don't choose based on license, but based on popularity or familiarity, based on what's the standard in the industry or within their community. If a user's been running a tool for years and it's good enough for their purposes they have no reason to look for an alternative, and the license or whether it's "better" is irrelevant. And big tech platforms love to amplify this effect with dark patterns and various forms of lock-in.
Software developed by enthusiasts that also receive patches from corporations (that can use the software thanks to a permissive licence) might be even better
I think those same people I mentioned would argue that being mainstream is also not a project goal, nor is utilization by corporations at all.
I have to admit I think a lot of people with this sort of "death to capitalism" mindset simply won't get anywhere, because they literally don't want to. I guess that means they may eventually fade into obscurity.
But the majority of project leaders I have talked to all seem to follow this mindset... they're not interested in making money, and "this is not a popularity contest."
Yet when a fork inevitably emerges, they go nuclear. Reminds me of a quote I saw one time... "they don't want open source, they want to be the ONLY source."
The article makes a case that this will eventually push GPL out of the mainstream. No one will use GPL because they "have to" (which is the whole premise of copyleft!). It will only be used by enthusiasts