Also, that Viaweb never made it to the New York Times doesn't mean that nobody then did. Note the first sentence of the essay ;)

Ha, great point! I had based my comment on memory.

Also, worth mentioning that while I don't want to be overly cynical, this article does sound like a brilliant PR campaign. Given the size of typical PR budgets, you could afford a lot of free fast-food lunches for people.