My parents view pensions as gold standard. That it cannot be messed with and clearly this article shows that it can. The promise for your years of service can't be paid out.
Now something you believed would allow you to not worry until your passing, perhaps leave a small something to your children, won't be. Instead, you're beginning to worry about how you'll make ends meet in a few years with all the rising prices.
Defined benefit plans rely on the firm to correctly manage their pension plan, allocate funds for it, invest them wisely etc. In public sector there is political pressure to reduce forecast costs of a defined benefit pension. In many places it's completely legal to operate an underfunded defined benefit plan. Defined benefit plans are also traditionally fixed to a single employer, they don't fit well for a more mobile labor force.
For defined contribution plans individuals actually have control of the pension funds - they are just locked from access til retirement. They are generally government run, you aren't locked to a single employer. Individuals can set their own risk appetite and make their own decisions regarding fees etc.
Defined benefit plans are really popular because the pension amount is "guaranteed" but this guarantee is just an illusion. You can't magically make risk go away, just move it somewhere else. Many examples of defined benefit plans that blew up/were restructured/cancelled etc. Defined benefit is just a plain bad concept.
Defined contribution plans in the USA typically have an extremely small contribution by the employer. Works out great for the employer. Doesn’t work out so great for lower wage earners as they struggle to fund the plan.
Does it? I think employers would be far better off if they didn't have to manage benefits. Having the employer administer everything was the deal we struck to provide socialist-like assurances for the middle classes while keeping the word "socialism" out of politics. The cost is every employer managing a complex system of benefits, workers navigating a bunch of different benefits systems as they change employers, more benefits systems to paper over gaps, and separate systems for a few categories of non-employed people that it would seem too brutal to leave unsupported. It's fantastically complicated, and there's no point to doing it that way except that we can call it capitalism.