A re-reading of the remarks suggests to me that they aren't arguing exactly the opposite. I'd put forward, after all, that no-one wants to create footguns, but folks are recognising that footguns are inevitable anyway, so plan accordingly.

As for why they're inevitable, the context is that most enterprise software is off-the-shelf and serves many markets, so configuration becomes the point of weakness. Only bespoke software written for a very narrow sector, or tailored to serve a single business, can really hope to do better.

We might hope things were different, but they're not, and as long as software continues to be developed by the humans, it's likely to remain that way.

None of this is meant to absolve Stripe, however, since in this particular instance they rather appear to have contributed to the fuckup by omitting a key element of auditability, viz. the clear reporting of exceptions.