the alternative is to bloat the utxo set to the point that running a node becomes expensive and bitcoin becomes centralized and easy to shut down.

"The primary motivation for this PR is to correct a mismatch between the harmfulness and standardness of data storage techniques. It makes the (prunable) OP_RETURN option available so that data is not stuffed into unprunable outputs."

I used to like Matthew Kratter, but I think he's going down the wrong path lately.