That is not about the replication or self-replication of RNA.

The article is about a mechanism that may produce random nucleic acid molecules, i.e. molecules that do not replicate any template.

Reactions of this kind, producing random nucleic acids, must have existed long before the appearance of the first self-replicating RNA, thus before the appearance of any nucleic acid that could be inherited by the descendants of a living being and that could provide any useful feature for that living being.