Not really, he explicitly makes the point that it's easier to write useful simple programs in Javascript without the extra stuff, whereas in Rust you need to know about a whole lot of things to make the equivalent simple program.

I read it and was disappointed, it's okay but probably my expectations were too high for this classic.

I would recommend Snow Crash instead, another Sci-Fi classic from the same era which I found to be a much more enjoyable read & more commensurate to the hype.

Wasn't there a better technical way to block the scraper? Like blocking IPs/domains at ingress instead of serving requests? Probably you do still pay for request traffic though...

Isn't there a market for anti-DDOS third-party services for API endpoints (Cloudflare etc) — through probably for "Free Speech Extremist" that wouldn't be suitable solution, and there are charges too (though presumably when facing a situation like this you actually save money).