[aalimov_]

I always took this saying as meaning that we don’t re-invent the concept of the wheel. For example the Boring company and Tesla hoping to reinvent the concept of the bus/train.. (iirc your car goes underground on some tracks and you get to bypass traffic and not worry about steering)

A metal wheel is still just a wheel. A faster package manager is still just a package manager.

[haiku2077]

That's not how I've ever seen it used in practice. People use it to mean "don't build a replacement for anything functional."