Your phone in your pocket is not sniffing medium format film resolution. It also lacks the latitude of really any negative film stock. Color wise slide film is still supreme to this day.

The realistic digital equivalent resolution of 4x5 film is around 40-50 megapixels, which iPhones have supported out of the box for a couple of years now.

Of course there's a lot more to taking good pictures than the raw sensor, but what I'm saying is that the barrier to entry is way lower than it was in the article's day.