I think it is possible that you are "hearing" a condescending tone where none is intended. I don't know the author, and they would be the best to address it (and I haven't finished the article yet), but here are my thoughts...

He's talking about VERY old technology. The older the tech is (and the more obsolete), the more likely it is that younger people won't even know what it is when they see it. That's not a strike against them, it's just a product of the rarity of the item in modern society.

"Fortnite is most popular among players between the ages of 18 – 24, who account for 63% of all Fortnite players." ( https://www.vertoanalytics.com/chart-week-deep-dive-fortnite... ). So the author is saying -- if you play Fortnite, you are likely to be fairly young, and if you are fairly young, there's a good chance you don't know what an acoustically coupled modem is.

I think that's a reasonable thing to say. Perhaps when I have time to finish the article I'll see something that changes my mind, but at this point I think it is worth giving the author the benefit of the doubt.

Nerds. Who think they're smarter than everyone else. It's like Hacker News. The tone really fits the audience well.

The paragraph that began "The probability of knowing what an acoustically coupled modem looks like is inversely proportional..." did read (to me) as condescending - but I think we should be generous and assume the author did not intended it to be.

It set the tone that you read in your head, but the rest of the article is fine (and really interesting!) if you can ignore that first paragraph and read it in a neutral tone.

I skipped this part and read the rest, I felt zero condescencion whatsoever. I guess that's something you guys cannot grasp.

(NB: some voluntary sarcasm has been inserted above)

One person's condescending is another person's folksy and approachable. I am not sure HN is an appropriate place to discuss an author's writing style.

It's more that author's particular style than it is all of Hackaday. Most (all?) of the other Hackaday writers do not have the same tone and some are absolutely delightful to read!

I tried to find a condescending remark. What did you find condescending about this article?

I also gave that comment the benefit of the doubt before I actually looked at the article.

"Very condescending" is a stretch. The most suspect thing I could find was the "fortnite" comment. It's a throwaway joke that won't amuse everyone.

This article is not typical of hackaday.

Not Fortnite players, apparently.