That's a huge misrepresentation of what happened to SimCity. EA released a incredibly user-hostile version of SimCity (always online, microtransations and more) that almost no one liked, and Cities: Skylines was released around that time too.
And then the fact that skylines had both a larger play area and more fancy city building features was just the killing blow.
EA got caught out, thinking they could leisurely bring out an inferior product, when a competitor emerged guns blazing.
“You" and “users generally” are different things.
They did! EA wanted you to play the game online. They encouraged you to connect your city with other players by making it difficult for cities to be self-sufficient.
I.e., user-hostile design.