I think their point might have been more that there just wasn’t as much need for jets that big in the first place. The jumbo jets are meant for a business model that pushes consumers into making extra compromises on their plans (like more and longer layovers) to accommodate the operator’s need to fill bigger planes with more people to make things economical. It turns out that many consumers are happy to spend a bit more on a direct flight instead of a 3 leg journey with one long flight on an widebody sandwiched between two “last mile” hops on a CRJ700.
The rocketry analogy would be choosing between (possibly - we can’t know numbers until Starship is commercially operational) paying a bit more but waiting less time for a Falcon 9 launch that puts you right into the orbit you want, or waiting for a bus ride on a Starship launch that only gets everyone to a compromise orbit in the general area of where they want to be and requires them to pack an extra motor and fuel for transferring the spacecraft to its final destination.
The rocketry analogy would be choosing between (possibly - we can’t know numbers until Starship is commercially operational) paying a bit more but waiting less time for a Falcon 9 launch that puts you right into the orbit you want, or waiting for a bus ride on a Starship launch that only gets everyone to a compromise orbit in the general area of where they want to be and requires them to pack an extra motor and fuel for transferring the spacecraft to its final destination.