The lede says Perl died because it was "reactionary" and "culturally conservative", but the content says Perl died because it had bad culture, the culture of angry, socially corrosive anonymous internet commenters.
If Perl had had a good culture, then conserving it would have been good!
That was effectively the culture of the Internet in general at that time. It was the "wild west" for years, because, well, it _was_ a modern incarnation of the same phenomenon.
If Perl had had a good culture, then conserving it would have been good!