Not anymore - that was months ago when he did all that labor, it is no a sunk-cost. We can debate if it was worth the investment though.
The article is about a 2000$ eink display that shows a calendar and the weather. Your phone does that for free and you don't need to walk to the hallway every time.
This is basically anti-technology. It takes more time, money and effort than just buying something from the dollar store that does the same thing
The relationship with technology you're designing around your family is worth considering too.
Looking at a shared hallway screen that shows a shared calendar which doesn't exist to pull anyone into a feed doesn't make a worse phone, it's solving a different level of shared understanding entirely.
The assumption that the phone is a neutral free tool tends to come most naturally to people who haven't yet thought about who designed the defaults and why. Free at point of use isn't the same as free. Someone optimized very hard for your continued presence.
It's also possible that the sentence struck a nerve because it's a pretty simple lens and test.
All the scrolling is free labour for tech/social media companies. Other folks seem to use it more as a platform to create, publish or be more mindful of their interactions compared to passive consumption and reaction.
Family schedules can be a unique and valuable problem to solve, namely how much more valuable time becomes, as well as how much a little bit of optimizing can give back.