Yes, the famous post is old, if i recall correctly is from 2004, so its addressed to the C++ 98 and style that was in vogue back then.

Take some vintage C++ code from late nineties, like games, and there's no concept of ownership, before smart pointers and move, and full of global's everywhere.

It was also when code were transitioning for a multi-threading era, so using the same code style of the previous sequential era was really bad.