The title is catchy and it's not exactly wrong. There's an element of truth to it. And yet, 99% of the times I hear it, it's as an excuse for crap, not some fundamental truth.
Dirt has to live somewhere, too. That's a good motto for a garbage company, but if you hear a chef saying it in the kitchen while preparing your meal, you might be worried.
Yep. Most of the "complexity" that is justified by mantras like this is not necessary complexity (like the inherent baseline complexity in solving a certain problem space) but cruft/enterprise/poor coding style that winds up suffocating a project. That kind of complexity should be torn out with disregard for the notion that it's somehow necessary.
I would differentiate between intrinsic complexity of a problem and artifical complexity of a solution.
Certain knots can be solved without changing the topology! They would just add artifical complexity.
Also, some truths can have both very simple and very involved proofs. They are a perfect example how just the right approach can reduce much complexity.
Just formulating the problem in a different way can already reduce much artifical complexity.
Dirt has to live somewhere, too. That's a good motto for a garbage company, but if you hear a chef saying it in the kitchen while preparing your meal, you might be worried.