I guess the author was upset that a great many people parroted the 'ugly fruits get disposed' line without doing any research. I might have mentioned it myself, because it was all over the news.
I can understand why someone who works in the industry would find this frustrating - it's basically just fake news and the damage is real. A rebuttal would get nowhere near the press the sensationalist original story would get.
The lesson from this is - share stories only within your area of expertise.
The ugly fruit movement is much bigger than that, and has its own markets and sale areas. Farmers (often in collaboration with startups (not all for-profit)) will divert this produce to sell to the middle-class people worried about this, since they pay more than the jam makers, but at the end of the market day some will throw away leftovers which are not worth the time to haul back, sort, etc. So it can actually increase food waste.
This is precisely what the OP (with expertise in this field) is stating.
See the statement about Honeycrisp apples.
Yes there are varieties more suited to different purposes, and there may be some that are grown specifically for those other purposes (e.g. a variety might be selectively bred with higher pectin for jam-making), but commercial producers of things like soup, pies, jams etc are a prime destination for ugly instances of supermarket-shelf varieties.
The lesson from this is - share stories only within your area of expertise.