He gives two reasons, one good, one bad. He has no problems with sites that use target="_blank" for the first reason. But he wrote the article because he thinks

He gives two reasons, one good, one bad. He has no problems with sites that use target="_blank" for the first reason. But he wrote the article because he thinks way too many sites are using it for the second reason, which he thinks is terrible UI and should never be used, because it confuses users, which is a dark pattern, even if it would increase your ROI, which is questionable.