[SimplyUnknown]

There's nothing wrong with it. As you say, many quality products come from this kind of work.

However, you can read this article as saying: "The only way you can sell software is by listening to customers and building exactly what they want." Which often is "We are using [Insert Tech Name] and it doesn't support feature X."

This narrative is clearly false. Many good products are built and monetized by just building something what you think the world needs or you think is fun to build. Again, many more of these software projects have failed using this strategy. Many good products are built and monetized by listening to customers and building what they want. And again, many poor clones that add no value are built using this way.

It is a two-way street which is not reflected in the article.