Nintendo wipes out 400 more Switch emulator repositories on GitHub as it continues its fight on piracy
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
Your understanding is correct and it's literally why Dolphin emulator is still going strong 20 years later, it doesn't do this.
"Developers" haven't do this because this is people clicking the fork button or copy-paste-upload. The actual developers have long since moved on.