I wonder if the author’s use of “you” rubbed some people the wrong way: “You are alone and powerless. You encounter a deep challenge,” “When you let your thoughts wander, they take you on a journey you’ll never think possible,” etc.
The pronoun seems intended to refer to the author’s own experiences, but I can see why some readers might think it refers to them. I had a bit of a negative reaction to those “you”s myself, as I experience cafés very differently from the author.
I have a similar negative reaction to op-ed articles that use “we” to refer to some sort of personified zeitgeist. From some essays currently appearing in the Opinion section of the New York Times:
“We are all in a constant state of grief, even though we don’t always admit it.”
“But we spend much of our lives in weaker friendship markets, where people are open to conversation, but not connection.”
“Over the past six decades or so, we chose autonomy, and as a result, we have been on a collective journey from autonomy to achievement to anxiety.”