Grandparent's point is that any model of reality that doesn't acknowledge the fact that sometimes powerful actors will refuse to cooperate is a flawed model of reality.
Who's the "we" in your comment and the original article? HN readers? The programming community at large? You and anyone else reading this article are free to write a compiler for a much better language than Javascript. There is no guarantee that Microsoft or Apple or Google will not actively undermine you too if it looks like your application is becoming a threat. More likely, such a language wouldn't serve the needs of most developers, and it'd be ignored like many other brilliant research languages that cannot get popular adoption.
Tech corporations aren't dictators and developers are not powerless. There is various ways we(developers and users), can put pressure on them. Damaging their brand by raising awareness is certainly one of them.
Who's the "we" in your comment and the original article? HN readers? The programming community at large? You and anyone else reading this article are free to write a compiler for a much better language than Javascript. There is no guarantee that Microsoft or Apple or Google will not actively undermine you too if it looks like your application is becoming a threat. More likely, such a language wouldn't serve the needs of most developers, and it'd be ignored like many other brilliant research languages that cannot get popular adoption.