[sunfish]

WebAssembly is expected to be around a long time, so it's not enough to just measure its speed today, because engines aren't very mature yet. As engines mature, it will likely get faster.

Also, performance is just one factor. Other criteria include security model, standards and governance, Web integration, nondeterminism.

[robocop2018]

No doubt, WebAssembly has lot's of going for it. I think the purpose of the article was to bring awareness around current performance and memory limitations so that WebAssembly can live to its full promise. Not so much an argument to keep PNaCl around.