This article is so silly. How can it get front page on HN?

The important point that he's missing is that, even though the pools are centralized, the individual miners are not! And this is really the main difference.

As ASIC chips get faster and faster we'll reach a physical point that it won't be beneficial to keep large rigs running in a central location - because of the economy of energy distribution.

I'd love it if there was a greener solution for decentralization than energy, but there isn't, otherwise we'd be using it! It's as simple as that.