It’s weird cos you’re the only person bringing up pirating first (others are bringing it up as a talking point you’ve raised), and that’s not the dichotomy - it’s not dubious reselling sites or pirating, it’s Humble Choice, the topic of your post, where the games are already discounted, the developers have decided to opt in, and some money is actually going to charity.
Even if you bring up your original post as providing “options for everyone”, it was written in the spirit of advertising grey market sites as an alternative to Humble Choice, and therefore it’s entirely fair that others are bringing up the harms of grey market sites so that everyone knows what the risks are between them. I used to use those grey market sites as a kid more than a decade ago before I understood that they were a tool by scammers to make their money, and now I no longer use them. It would only be honest for you to have talked about that in your original post rather than ignoring it because the only alternative to you is piracy.
People don’t really like to read the articles before commenting, huh.
Knowing Stardew was such a beloved game, I knew I had to get context before judging the author because it could be read both ways.
People who assume games not changing = criticism are telling us more about their own uncharitable view of others than anything else.
EDIT: That said, if I were to offer criticism, I feel like the author gives too much credit to Stardew as though it invented or pioneered the tight gameplay loop: perhaps at least some mention could have been made to Harvest Moon, the game from which Stardew borrows - and perfects - most of its major systems.
Also to be fair, it doesn’t go anywhere with that thought that Stardew hasn’t changed. Felt a little low-effort, like a retrospective on Stardew that just basically listed what people liked about it.