This story is very thin on details, but with the abysmal quality level of most Samsung software it is 100% believable.
Call me old-fashioned, but a refrigerator should never have to reboot. ;-) A microcontroller running drop-dead-simple firmware is OK, but if it ever has to reboot for any reason save power outages, they've failed.
I'll certainly agree on Samsung's software (at least the sort of things users directly interact with) being a vortex of suck, though. Back when I used a Galaxy S Relay "4G" (the "4G" in quotes because they were calling DC-HSPA+ "4G"), I found the phone to be much better after I installed CyanogenMod.
Too bad CyanogenMod imploded, and worse, there's no LineageOS for that old handset, which was one of the last good slider phones.
To be fair to Samsung, I have no complaints about their SSD firmware, but I'll stay away from their cell phones.
Also if Android fails or is deprecated for some reason then they could replace the OS without a user revolt.
They want to differentiate. In their minds, people will look at their friend's phone and go "oh wow, how do I get that sweet messaging app?" and the answer will be "You have to buy a Samsung!".
Of course, we all know it doesn't work out like that for a variety of reasons, not least of which is their inability to execute on a better clone of the existing Android apps.
mission accomplished
It's sad, because they do that (IMO) really well, especially on their flagships, with hardware; the software isn't merely unnecessary, it's a cost that weighs against the hardware.