I don’t think the article is trying to claim that labor exploitation is new.
This part directly admits that it is a very old phenomenon:
It’s been noted, and correctly so, that entertainment industry labor disputes often erupt when there’s a change in technology — from theaters screening projected films to the cathode ray tube of the home television, say, or the rise of YouTube and other online content in the 2000s — and that happens for a reason. Historically, executives and management use a disorienting new technology to try to justify lowering wages of their workers, and they have done so since the days of the Industrial Revolution.
As I understood it, the article just wants to explain why this is happening now, because historically it seems to happen in waves.