I instinctively closed it as a cookie popup, and then wondered where the article was.

It's not a nit at all. This is some of the worst web design from a tech company that I've seen in a long time.

That doesn't seem to be unique to this blog post, I got the same thing clicking the other ones linked at the bottom of the page. I see the word "short" in the URL, maybe they have a separate category of "shortform" posts and the modal is for those?

It's also a peeve of mine that their "blog" has no feed.

Rather inelegant.

Welcome to the savage future.