Here on HN, you occasionally find tl;dr near the top of a comment thread -- but it's followed by a nice summary of the article. Instead of expressing the rather worthless sentiment of "I didn't read this", it's expressing the far more valuable "if you're not sure you want to invest the time in reading this, here are the highlights of what you would have otherwise missed."
I totally agree, I don't read the comments for an explicit summary. I read the comments to see what opinions people have of the article, on the basis of the comments I determine if the article is worth reading.
I don't do this for all articles, but it is a pretty common occurrence.
Summary: the article claims that words are what makes the web what it is and that instead of being an after-thought in design they should be at the fore of web design. That words alone can convey a powerful [enough] message and so, it is intimated, minimal design is sufficient.