Ya, the article doesn't specifically use the word demand but in the final section Is It Good? says "The estimated 12k to 15k weekly sales volume reflects the fact that this is not a mainstream home run." this implies that the 12k-15k is a demand number but we can't reach that conclusion with this data.
The analysis seems mostly[1] solid but the conclusions are all wrong. The steam machine was sold out and wait-listed. Value doesn't charge until you are removed from the wait-list so these numbers reflect the number of manufactured units per week (e.g. manufacturing capacity and/or distribution strategy) of the steam machine and not demand. This is only a minimum demand. To get the demand you would need to derive info about the length of the waiting list.
[1] The unit mix would be what valve picked as the initial mix and not necessarily the market average. Also, the sales numbers would include the steam controller if you selected that option but I don't know if there is good data on whether any of the initial reservations had the steam controller.
What is being missed is that most commercial leases are much longer term than residential leases. Businesses will want to renovate the space and sign a 10 or 20 year lease. So if you lower the rent by 30% you will really be reducing the income of the building over the long term and face those consequences when refinancing. Landlords will frequently try to rent out unused space to temporary tenants like popups or non profits that they can move in without renovation and kick our on shorter notice to generate some cash-flow and keep the storefront occupied.
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