The article covers a variety of different approaches to dealing with high cocoa prices, but the Amsterdam brownie in the title is using a more heavily alkalized cocoa powder to maintain a similar taste while using less cocoa:
> The former gets its punch from using more heavily “dutched,” or alkalized, cocoa. It’s also what made that magical brownie taste so chocolatey.
If you buy dutch chocolate for baking you are told that this is actually significantly less flavorful, but a darker color, and useful for eg dark baked goods, when you're mostly trying to create a certain color shade without adding a ton of chocolate flavor.
It's inaccurate to say that dutched cocoa is less flavorful. Chocolate flavor is composed of multiple notes / experiences. Dutched cocoa has less acidic or fruity notes, but more dark rich, fudgy notes. Different, not less flavorful.
> The former gets its punch from using more heavily “dutched,” or alkalized, cocoa. It’s also what made that magical brownie taste so chocolatey.