Sure, that's fair. In the real world there are a lot of developers who want to be told what to do, or need to be told what to do because they lack business domain knowledge. A defined methodology like SAFe allows large enterprises to move forward at a steady pace and get some productive work out of those people.

The reality is that in some domains there just aren't many developers who are highly motivated, self directed, and thoroughly understand customer needs. Those people just aren't widely available in the labor market regardless of wages or working conditions. So if management doesn't impose a fairly strict methodology then then the program will collapse.