I didn't read through all of the comments in that post (not a heavy medium user myself), but agree that the response from the CEO seemed highly myopic.

As a Medium user… I look more positively on the comment from the CEO. He described high-level strategy that has influenced the decisions made which created the pain points described by users in that thread. A minutiae obsessive leader doesn’t create a good long-lasting company: we have to give the CEO time to drive the company in a positive direction based on a strategy.

Half the comments in that thread only got as far as:

  1. Take down paywall
  2. ???
  3. Profit!

Hopefully you have better suggestions!