This was an utterly atrocious article. There are legit complaints about how 401k's are managed, such as their expense ratio, but guess what, you don't get anything if you don't put anything. If you are about to retire and only have $12,000 in savings, that's on you!
If you're company is offering a 5% match and you don't take it, but then don't look for other options, then you have no one to blame but yourself, though I pity that your parents didn't instill better financial literacy.
This doesn't surprise me as the vast majority of Americans don't know what their APR is on their credit card, or many other useful tidbits (though I suppose knowing your APR is useless if you always pay on time or don't own a credit card).