I use it a lot. It pushes down alerts when my subway lines are delayed, as well as the status of various deliveries I have from Amazon.com and the like. Also sports results, which I sometimes care about.

That said, I believe what the article says - I don't feel like Google Now has changed meaningfully in a long time. The other day I got an alert saying that app-specific cards are being enabled, but I'm yet to see one.