Well he does make a good point. I am guessing that many drivers living in metrpolitan areas have no more than 20 mile commute to work.
20 x 2/day x 20 work days/month x 4 months = 3.2K mile OCI
Of course, there may be few trips, but then during vacation and holidays you don't commute to work, so it doesn't change the result above much. Also, some people may be using public transport sometimes (again metro areas).
Thus 3 OCIs using "any" dino would suffice. In fact, by this calculation the vehicle only travels 10K miles per year! Longer OCI simply doesn't apply due to the 6 month time limit, 1 year at most on synth.
Indeed this vehicle would only travel 200K miles after 20 years and would clearly have many other problems well before engine failure.
This is sort of my "problem"
as I have a 10 year old Civic with only 80K miles. I just don't drive than much as my commute ranged from zero (public transport) to 33 miles, no more. Even on my bike's 2K OCI I only had a single oil change this summer.
So he may have a valid point. Many/most drivers don't drive enough for extended OCIs and exceed time limit before 5+K distance limit, so for them any oil will work fine (or any decent dino for 5K OCI).
Of course, I realize there are many other scenarios, people with active lives and/or children and/or pets ... Even then, in a typical family with 2 kids you'll have at least 2 cars and only one of them will see over 10K per year (van or suv, the "family" vehicle) while the other one(s) will be simple commute vechiles, 10K/year.
For myself I still try to find a "decent" dino even for my modest 3-5K OCIs. In my case there is no point in using anything but cheap dino for the Civic that will fall apart well before the engine.
