Next to the old charts you mention, the author writes: "This is just the 2017 version of The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs, which I wrote about a few years ago,

Next to the old charts you mention, the author writes: "This is just the 2017 version of The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs, which I wrote about a few years ago, where I showed some stats indicating that email marketing open rates are on the decline … and that traditional banner CTRs seem to be asymptotically approaching zero". I.e., he indicates that this is a continuation of long-running trend, and that those particular charts illustrate the trend from several years ago, so your criticism misses the mark. I thought it was a very interesting article, and identifies a set of fundamental trends. The main weakness is too much focus on B2C, but that's the author's area of interest.