I've perceived an acceleration in the rate of these changes in the last 2-3 years, and have started to put at least some of it down to Linux having annihilated

I've perceived an acceleration in the rate of these changes in the last 2-3 years, and have started to put at least some of it down to Linux having annihilated most of the competition in the UNIX server space. With Solaris now headed for retirement and most of the rest of the SysV ecosystem having collapsed over the preceding 20 years or so, it makes it easier for companies like Redhat to "innovate" in new directions with less pressure from developers and sysadmins alike. I'm not sure how much of this is just my imagination, but the rate at which "old world" UNIX commands and subsystems are being replaced or supplanted in Linux certainly seems to have increased. I agree with the author that some of these changes are forced by the development in the kernel itself, but I consider that part of the same phenomenon I guess.