> how else would one reproduce a bug? in production?

I don't think they meant "either" "or". I think they meant that you should not solely rely on reproducing issues locally. If you have good logging, many times, the logs would make it apparent where the issue is. When that fails, then you resort to reproducing the issue locally.

But if an app developer never adds any logs, they would be forced to reproducing the issue locally every single time which is counter productive.

So it isn't either logs or reproduce locally. It is add logs and read logs. But also reproduce locally when you really have to.

There are often additional hints to go by, e.g., the executed network requests, the user path taken or "breadcrumbs", i.e., custom events captured.

Of course that requires a certain operational maturity.