The article speaks for itself. In a nutshell: "If you withdraw 4% PA and you go broke, the declining balance means you didn't really pay the FA 1% of the initial balance every year for the entire time". It is sublimely obvious in its own twisted way (who measures fees like that?), and it is entirely beside the important point (the client has gone broke. Did the FA's fees accelerate that?).
Furthermore, if the client's portfolio does well (which we would hope would be the majority of cases), the same bizarre measurement standard (constant % of initial investment) would mean the client paid considerably >more< than 1%. Kitces brushes this off--since the client didn't die destitute, I guess he shouldn't care what he paid the FA. We don't get a nice chart from Kitces or a long explanation, or even a number, just a few words minimizing the relevance of these (growing) fees. Well, if he's got the historical returns and he gave us the most "favorable" case (1% fees really = 0.4%), he should use the same methodology and give us the mean and median amounts (what would that be? 1% fees really = 1.5%? 2%? 5%?). We don't know, because he doesn't tell us these less flattering results.
Sorry, it's drivel. And self-serving drivel served up to those who will repeat it to their [-]marks[/-] clients. If a portfolio can safely support a withdrawal rate of 4%, and if fees are 1%, then the client will be living on just 3%, a heck of a lot less than if he didn't have those fees. If Kitces had stuck with that, he would have been fine. And right.