Read the article carefully though, it's mostly trying to be inflammatory. It seems ideas outside of what Bethesda usually does end up having to go through Todd because he is good at putting himself in the end user's shoes even if he doesn't want to be the guy with the final say in everything.
It seems more like something that happened over time as they became successful.
But we are talking about design decisions here, it would be micromanagement if he was getting in the middle of how things are done, not the end result.
Season 2 had heavy studio meddling according to the show's creator, it kinda bombed and season 3 cleaned up the mess but the whole thing got cancelled.
You actually get the results you are looking for without the sponsored links. Sometimes you end up searching for reddit results but that's every search engine.
I use old reddit from time to time to check specific subs and it's wild seeing how boring they've gotten.