However I think the article is trying to make the point that software engineering-types are sometimes prone to otherwise obvious oversights because they tend to think of solving all of their business problems with code.
because a startup has structured its business model to keep the vast majority of the profit it extracts from a virtual work force of independently contracted peons
The only reason Big Tech is against the NSA now is because their most valuable customers are eyeing foreign competitors based in countries with actual privacy laws. I talk to clients all the time who want their data stored in Luxembourg or Switzerland or Iceland. MSFT, Google, FB, et al. were totally content to sell out the American public and aide the creation of a surveillance state as long as they profited from it.
Just imagine that you had more than one choice of high speed Internet provider (unlike 95% of Americans who are stuck with the one cable company that happened to successfully bribe their local municipality) and think about what would happen to this issue. Competition would force the ISPs to knock this shit off. It's a product of their entrenched geographic monopolies. Period.