While I distrust the author's claims to be able to reliably distinguish devices created by data thinking and design thining irrespective of final quality (I'm having a hard time thinking of a situation more rife with the potential for hindsight bias) he does make a number of good points.

Perhaps the best was that if you're trying to grow a market then being like your competitors is probably the wrong was to go about. A common expression of mockery with a group of friends is that a company is "trying to differentiate by embracing the dominant paradigm." These seems related.