It's clear they did not walk out.

By the time I placed my order - paying a 1% fee to the app makers in the process - I would have happily paid double for the experience of simply flipping through a menu and talking to another human being.

(Emphasis mine.) This is from the very next paragraph after what I quoted.

You also clearly missed the point of my comment, which is that unless consumers start refusing to take this bullshit lying down, this stuff will be unavoidable in the future because there will be no other choices left.