What makes it cringy?

It felt very marketing rather than technical to me. Sorry fallen was probably too baitworthy, shift in role / priority probably but either way, it wasn't a fun read for me. Thanks for asking though!

Hmm.

Obviously it was a blog post about business strategy and not technical architecture.

But I sort of thought the direct argument for open source and against lock-in as a business strategy would please the technical audience.

My role hasn't changed. I have always been simultaneously writing code, designing technical architecture, and also influencing product/business strategy. This particular piece of strategy is one I advocated and won support for, which is why I wrote the post.