Assuming that the premise is valid (which I don't believe it is), the main reason why the extended conclusion is wrong is that this is a slippery slope fallacy: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope
Specifically, the author states:
Ethereum allows anyone to make a smart contract about anything. In other words, it has no ability to move intelligently along the autonomy-coordination tradeoff. The autonomy it provides will actually prevent many things from taking place.
Followed by
The Parasite Contract
Behold this outline for a Smart Contract:
- Offer all the functionality of a pre-determined “Host” Oracle Contract.
- Wait for the Oracle to report. In other words:
- Access the database of the Host’s blockchain (by tracking things like block number, block date,
SPV proofs, etc).
- Scan the database for anything perfectly-correlated to the External Data fetched by the Host Oracle (contract state, payouts to certain addresses).
- Use that Host-Data to alter the Parasite’s state (without paying the Host anything).
Because of this, any Host (external-data contract) can’t grow to a significant size without being invaded by Parasites and leeched to death...
Instead of engaging with specifics of the problem the author has jumped to extreme hypotheticals and no proof is presented to show that such extreme hypotheticals will actually occur.
The reason this fictitious 'parasite contract' would never work is because compute resources require Gas. Gas is applied outside of the context of running the transaction. You can't just "Use that Host-Data to alter the Parasite’s state (without paying the Host anything)". The host is earning the gas.