What's the appeal? -- you need to RTFA
You need to read the fine article. The locations in Brooklyn are subsidized, both through actual rent subsidy, and temporary tax exemptions being extended to tech companies: NYC wants these businesses moving in, and they want it in a rather large way, since they don't see bodegas, taxi companies, or a lot of other non-tech businesses as being a growth industry for increasing the tax base.
Without a huge investment in a redevelopment effort to knock down buildings and grow things up, about the only thing they can do is try to increase tax revenue by incentivizing higher income businesses to locate in the area -- and right now, that means tech companies.
The article specifically complains about these types of companies being preferentially subsidized.
About the only things worse that NYC could be doing to itself right now, besides reducing the caffeine intake for software engineers by limiting cup sizes, I mean, would be to be extending these subsidies to the Wall Street folks instead, or passing something like California's Prop 13, and having it apply to non-residential, non-parking structure commercial properties, as it does in California right now (thank you, Kaiser Family Trust -- NOT). There's a reason that San Francisco has built up huge numbers of un-rented high value per square foot commercial properties, and is knocking down older buildings an parking structures everywhere they think they can get away with it.