I certainly understand that there can be good reasons to take down an archive, and I don't particularly agree with the entitlement that comes through in some of the comments in that thread. I can see the frustration, though, if you didn't save a copy of a story you adored and then you go back and all the files are gone, and so is the author's site and all their contact information. And that can happen on the Internet, even sometimes when the author didn't intend it.

I don't know how much experience you have with ffrants, but I wouldn't take any opinions expressed there too seriously, or as particularly representative of fandom. I mostly found this post interesting as a jumping off point.