This dichotomy exists, and the author states the illusion of "competent" vs "incompetent", but I think it's more "Conscientious" vs "Indifferent". Tech business competition breeds indifference, because when you optimize around minimizing technical debt, your competitor will eat your lunch with worse code. Lots of competent engineers incur tons of technical debt, because they'll eventually be paid to swim in it, and they don't care. Open source projects tend to be written with much more care, because the reward mechanism is different.