They are referring to Huy Fong's Sriracha sauce. It's the one that took the market by storm. Even in small towns where the "Asian" section was practically empty, you could see the red bottle with the green cap. It even escaped the small corner of the grocery store to be displayed next to Heinz ketchup. For many, it was their first experience with hot sauce, apart from Tabasco.

The sriracha sauces one you mentioned are effectively copies of the sauce made and popularized in the US by Huy Fong.

So it's not so much that "sriracha is like ketchup" but just that you don't know the origin of the sauce. It's like saying "we have a lot of cola products in France, what's so special about Coca Cola?"

Now, if you were Thai that would be different story, as "sriracha" means a completely different sauce (and place) in Thailand, and thus more "generic"

In the US, Huy Fong was the only Sriracha that I ever saw (and commonly only on the west coast), until the very early 2000s.

My understanding was/is that Huy Fong could have trademarked the name in the US back then, but they chose not to based on the founder's humiity and/or naivete.

Somewhere around 2003(?), Sriracha (still only Huy Fong) became an Internet sensation and then very quickly there were a dozen brands available, all calling themselves Sriracha (legally OK), and often imitating the Huy Fong trade dress in sort-of subtle ways. Huy Fong pushed back on some of those imitators.

And then Huy Fong stopped being able to produce marketable volumes ("bad harvest" was the explanation at the time), and then it started tasting far less good, but still less bad than the others. Presumably this corresponds to their supplier change, which gives me a new appreciation for terroir.

I have never found another Sriracha that is comparable to Y2K-era Huy Fong. Modern Huy Fong is just OK. I don't think it would have become an Internet sensation if the product was always thus. I've tried at least 25 other brands, searching for that taste. So much disappointment!