I think many have recognized the demand for dashboards and sprung a cottage industry around it. That is demands often are perverted and sometimes it just comes from an exec wanting to see some "action" or gaining "visibility". They have VC money to spend and will spend money for moving "realtime" colors on the screen.
For the dashboard creators, that is all they need. If someone buys is it. They will keep making it.
On other hand, to disagree with the author. "So what?" People want shitty realtime moving colors because they look cool. Heck, have you seen the crap people pay for in app stores, farmville type games on Facebook and so on. One can criticize the providers and consumer of that crap. Yet they are happily transferring money and product between each other.