The article is confused about the difference between a logo and a word mark, which is what they are showing. Big brands are super pedantic about how and where logo marks and word marks are used. You shouldn't be seeing these word marks in contexts that are not already dripping in branding for the company.
Look at the Pinterest Brand guidelines (https://business.pinterest.com/en-au/brand-guidelines/) and you well find them saying: "Only use the Pinterest badge (please don’t use our word mark)". The Pinterest badge is the exact same stylised letter P from the old wordmark. So, almost everywhere you encounter a Pinterest logo it will be the stylised graphic. They can do that because enough people recognise the brand that they can drop the "interest".
The Facebook logo is an even weirder example because they are comparing the old Facebook app word mark with the newer Facebook-the-company word mark. That logo was specifically designed to look different from the app. Now that Facebook is now Meta, that uppercase logo has been retired.
Microsoft, Facebook, Pinterest, Spotify and Airbnb all have stylised logo marks. eBay and Google use word marks, but are brightly coloured and immediately recognisable 99% of the time they are seen.
Also in the age of social media, visual identity is less about the wordmark. For most of these companies, their word mark doesn’t even show up on their social media feeds. Most have guidelines that often include a custom typeface, specific types of photography, editorial layouts, illustrations that define the brand.
100% agree - It's not entirely suprising that when you remove the logos from a logo, along with initially the colour, they look similar.
I bet that those fashion companies have a decent idea of what they are doing in terms of branding and design though, and are making these decisions consciously and intentionally.
Look at the Pinterest Brand guidelines (https://business.pinterest.com/en-au/brand-guidelines/) and you well find them saying: "Only use the Pinterest badge (please don’t use our word mark)". The Pinterest badge is the exact same stylised letter P from the old wordmark. So, almost everywhere you encounter a Pinterest logo it will be the stylised graphic. They can do that because enough people recognise the brand that they can drop the "interest".
The Facebook logo is an even weirder example because they are comparing the old Facebook app word mark with the newer Facebook-the-company word mark. That logo was specifically designed to look different from the app. Now that Facebook is now Meta, that uppercase logo has been retired.
Microsoft, Facebook, Pinterest, Spotify and Airbnb all have stylised logo marks. eBay and Google use word marks, but are brightly coloured and immediately recognisable 99% of the time they are seen.