As long as each group of writers sticks to its ideal audience, there's no problem. The conflict starts when academics are asked to write for a popular audience,

As long as each group of writers sticks to its ideal audience, there's no problem. The conflict starts when academics are asked to write for a popular audience, or a scientist reads something a non-scientist wrote about his field. Then you get a style/audience mismatch, with the ensuing arguments as detailed in the article.