"Did we misunderstand something about Scrum?"

No - because the answer is not in Scrum. Scrum people seem to believe that the Scrum Guide was written by a deity and that the answers are all there - if you just look hard enough. They aren't.

"Scrum is an empirical process framework, created by the Agile mindset"

No. Many of the original authors of the Agile Manifesto feel that Scrum stole the movement, and that Scrum corrupts the original intentions of the Manifesto.

The author is right that there is more to building systems that - building systems. Companies invest in building a business system or adding a new feature for a reason: they are trying to achieve something in their market or among their constituents. That goal - that should be the driver. Outcomes should be measures. In DevOps terms, there should be customer-facing feedback loops.