It's still present. JSON/JS parsing still has a delay. And in either case (as the author states) not everyone is using an iPhone over 5G. Heavy React apps are a miserable experience on low end Android phones, even when the connection is fast. I've seen JS/JSON parsing times in the multiple seconds.
Read the article. Typical users had old browsers often with poor reception. One user was using a PlayStation Portable which had very limited WWW capability.
"What, support Safari? Isn't that, like, less than 20%? And its standards support is abysmal! No, not worth my time, they can upgrade to a normal browser like everyone else."