It's not a technological argument, it's one of human perception. The article talks about how ordinary people like you and me simply didn't view an elevator as s

It's not a technological argument, it's one of human perception. The article talks about how ordinary people like you and me simply didn't view an elevator as something that's safe or convenient without a manual operator, quite like cars today. And that this perception didn't change automatically, it took time and new ideas which didn't have much to do with technology really. As for safety perceptions back then, it's hard to say exactly what they were like. The article alludes they were pretty bad, when elevator operators went on strike the city was badly affected apparently. I can tell you in the US like 20-30 people die each year in elevators, it's pretty minor given the billions of trips but I think we can easily imagine elevators were not quite as reliable 100 years ago when the automatic elevator existed, and that the accident rate was quite a lot higher.