It's been decades since published node sizes had any connection to actual feature size. Sadly this is just how it works in the semiconductor industry now.
>So essentially, since 1997, the node name has not been a representation of any actual dimension on the chip, and it has erred in both directions by almost a factor of 2.
Smart money would be on the first person who realized that the expertise required to understand the technical details had grown beyond that possessed by 51%+ of stock investing (trading?) population as weighted by transaction volume.