Of course, because money is the only criteria that is important to any business. There couldn't possibly be anything else, like a sense of mission or purpose, that could inform decisions.
This is more an issue of optimization versus long term vision. Some firms can act like Apple, ignore feedback, and invent the future. That's very rare. The rest must react to feedback.
He says, "Given an existing user base, on average 30% will hate any given change to their user experience, independent of whether the that experience is actually worse or better."
I wonder how @harrf's number would play out over time as users adjust, get used to, and accept changes the way many Apple users do. I'm not convinced that designers always know what's best for users, but I do think it sometimes takes a little while for users to catch on to the long-term benefits designers are designing for.