As someone who has terrible kitchen cleaning habits- definitely not true lol.

Wet coffee grounds will grow mold quicker than any other food product I've seen.

Even a pot of coffee will get mold on the top within like a week.

I wonder if this is that the grounds, post use, are somewhat sterilized and vulnerable to rapid colonization.

I believe it has more about the lack of airflow and the compaction and moisture.

Mold (a fungus) has grown in my refrigerated cold brew enough times for this to be false.

More here - https://kitchenappliancehq.com/can-cold-brew-coffee-mold/

Huh... that hasn't been my experience. I notice that article uses a lot of affiliate links, are you sure it's not fear-mongering in order to sell it's special cold brew coffee maker?

Not saying that mold is impossible, but I don't think the solutions is to buy their amazon affiliate coffee maker and special coffee butter.

If you have mold issues after 24 hours of cold brewing I think you have some deeper issues at play. Consider getting mold tests for your house, sterilizing the tools/containers you use, and switching out your beans.

I wasn’t endorsing the article, merely providing it as evidence of mold following my anecdote.

I generally face it 3-4 days in, not 24 hours.

Perhaps, but I've cold brewed black tea enough times with moldy results to forewarn y'all.