The ten year anniversary of Dota's public release is coming up (yes, we're working on some fun stuff for it; no, we're definitely not going to hit the July 9th date listed on Steam). As anniversaries go ten years is a big one, and while looking back is important, what's more important is how we approach the ten years to come.
Obviously this is good :D but how they’re expressing this makes it sound as if they hadn’t known that gameplay updates were popular with the players.
Of course they knew that, they’re not totally incompetent. Just like any corporation, battle pass was prioritized because it generated the most revenue.
But now they noticed, that maybe only focusing on the battle pass and (eventually) losing all players who are the ones buying the battle pass is actually pretty bad for battle pass sales as well, since the people buying the battlepass would just not be there anymore to buy it.
So of course now they move back to more focus on gameplay updates, to get more/retain customers for the battle pass.
Of course they can’t say it like this, that’s why they have to sound as if they were incompetent and really thought cosmetics rather than gameplay updates were the most important thing for the players.