Some are not on top of the game as much as they might portray themselves. For all he decries the lack of curatorial influence in online streaming sites from DJ-type people, there's a glaring lack of mention of turntable.fm. How does one miss this on the eve of the SF Music Tech Summit on Monday?!
Slacker is a better comparison for your question. Their playlists are created by professional DJs with years of experience. The guy didn't say you can't find playlists created by people, but seemed to hone in on the fact that those people, for the most part, don't know that much about music. I don't think the "DJs" in Turntable make a good argument that he's wrong.
Slacker didn't make it because Slacker is as close to a traditional radio station as you can get. Their biz-dev SVP is an old school (but not old!) college radio promo guy, who I worked with. They are old MusicMatch and Rio guys that run it.
It's not sexy, it needs some work but its what it is and doing OK.
I guess to the point, it's not a big idea. It solves the pain the author describes, but that's a pain that was previously solved, is still solved in some places, and they just kept that solution the same.
