The article assumes a normal distribution, making the distinction moot

But it is useful to question whether that is true in all cases. The cases that aren't normal-distributed might be exactly the cases where it pays off to be neither average or median

there is a major shortcoming in this assumption; everything we've seen related to the internet and technology in general suggests there is rarely a normal distribution. I think it's way more valuable ato frame the questions as a long tail (pareto) distribution and a "good enough" cut-off point.

It is almost never true. If you filter people you're going to get a Pareto distribution.