I suppose that's fair. I guess I'm lamenting the missed opportunity for an interesting philosophical discussion, and perhaps wishing the author had presented his (otherwise very interesting!) thoughts through a more nuanced lens. I don't think he would even need to change the title.
I still enjoyed the article, and would upvote it again if I could.
GEB explores a similar idea in investigating where a program is written
It's implied that the distinctions are somewhat arbitrary. For example, a song is "written" on a record with a bunch of grooves, and the record-player is the machine that plays it. But if the record-player spun backwards instead of forwards, you'd hear something completely different. So in some sense, the record-player also holds part of the program.
And all this runs parallel to the idea that a program is also data, IMO. I think a 'non-arbitrary' definition of a machine would be very general.
I still enjoyed the article, and would upvote it again if I could.