What they're describing is precisely the model most bloggers wanted for comments in the early days of blogging (late 90s & early 2000s). Trackbacks, pingbacks, etc. and other protocols were devised to allow bloggers to reply to each other with posts and aggregate them all together. It's not some 'technobro' solution, it's a way to publish content without incurring all of the real costs of also publishing (and managing) discussion forums or comment sections.

It unfortunately never really took off because Facebook came in and became the defacto platform for people to post and comment on things--essentially becoming a giant ad-funded discussion forum moderated by Facebook staff and volunteers.