The article states it's just a fork, AKA a separate coin that copy/pastes the current Bitcoin ledger. Even if every dev wants this, that is a "hard fork" (not backwards compatible), and creates a new version of the coin. Ex: if you want to add a smiley face to some Bitcoin log output, you 1) make the change, and 2) nothing happens until 3) miners agree to use that new version.

Look into "Bitcoin Cash", a near identical coin except it has a larger block size. Completely different token and therefore has 0 effect on Bitcoin.

Might be more illuminating to look at Ethereum Classic.

How’s that doing after the fork led by the central owners of a decentralized blockchain, initiated to reallocate a big pile of money that the devs didn’t think was in the right spot?