Market research and observational/UX research are not the same. Market research looks for trends in bulk; UX research looks for individual actions and preferences. The difference is important, and it’s lost on the article’s author.

In UX research you don’t ask people what they want or what they like, you (e.g.) put them in front of software/prototypes, give them tasks, and watch them work. What you learn in this context is _why_ people do things; it’s hard to get that from metrics.

You also don’t get new product ideas from customers. There are aphorisms 100 hundred years old about that which everyone should know: “If I asked my customers what they wanted they would have said, ‘A faster horse.’”