I assumed the author really meant that using a spreadsheet for project tracking is outdated, static, and manual. Which I agree with. But spreadsheets in general of course are tremendously useful!
I've seen spreadsheets used for project tracking and in general I think they're versatile enough that they're useful tools. What's a better alternative? Jira and other proprietary solutions sound good in theory but I feel like in practice they're just expensive and time consuming since developers and managers need to learn a new tool that might not even have the features you're looking for.