Does the factory really need to grow? (though experiment, question from the community)

Okay, I might be hated for this opinion and downvoted, and understandably so, I'm willing to take this risk, since this is the factoriohno sub after all.

I always heard, read that "the factory must grow", but it never really resonated with me, and today I've found out why.

The way I play revolves around basically achieving my task with as little as possible, and having some fun along the way. I understand that the bigger factory produces more stuff, lets you build even bigger, better, faster, and more, but is that REALLY needed if I can achieve what I want without it?

My question is: why is the saying not "the factory must function" or something like "the factory must do" or an even more esoteric "you must find your inner engineer/factory"?

Why is the growth the default thing that the factory must do? Growth will always have a limit, your machine, the game engine, etc., but achieving arbitrary, even stupid tasks have no limit at all.