It's just one measure of profitability. Is it a con to report a business's gross revenue? Hardly.
It has a useful meaning in its context. If you're going to value a business based on a single number, your problems can't be fixed by blaming the number.
Author of the article here -- kind of, but the idea here was just to write a piece about a capital-intensive business compared to the couple of capital-light businesses I'd covered in the prior articles I wrote, and how that difference in capital requirements plays through the P&L, balance sheet and cash flow statement. One effect of capital intensity is that EBITDA becomes a less useful measure, sure. Another effect is that the cashflow statement becomes incredibly important to running the business, as does understanding the difference between maintenance capex and growth capex.
It's known colloquially as "Earnings before bad stuff" because you can use it to hide all the stuff in your accounts that doesn't make you look good. It's not a con, more like obfuscation.
It has a useful meaning in its context. If you're going to value a business based on a single number, your problems can't be fixed by blaming the number.