That is ONE THING that people have asked for. One of a good number of things along the lines of the settlement system that people have asked for. Of course by focusing solely on that one singular aspect of what people have requesting while ignoring all of the other things it enables you to utterly dismiss the entirety of the update out of hand as “no one asked for this” rather convientely doesn’t it? 
As you can see here from this dev stream back in 2020 they had been planning on this settlement system, back then called a city system, since early access. They were not able to implement it back then, and are only starting to be able to do so now, under a different team mind you, but none the less this was something that has been in the plans back in 2017. As were mounts, as was sorcery. And this system has been asked for many many many times by a multitude of people ever since, as was sorcery, as were mounts.
Have you ever met people? People will ALWAYS complain about EVERYTHING. So you may as well begin laughing now. 