While that's a good piece, in my experience it overstates the situation a lot. Not that I go to them a lot, but there seem to be plenty of bars/pubs where music isn't blaring. Yeah, most are probably pretty crowded and noisy on a Saturday night but not sure when this wasn't the case.

As for cafes, I pretty regularly meet someone in a Starbucks or whatever to have a discussion. I'm probably not going to talk about my top secret plans for world domination there--but, again, I'm not sure at what point in time I'd be comfortable discussing something that the next someone the next table over could overhear.