No, you didn't read that wrong. It does seem like intention is that individuals cannot publish (publish, not write) software for playstore if they cannot operate as a business; Individuals actually can operate as a business as a sole proprietorship aka soleprop which can and do have a DUNS number and is a legit way of doing business. Individuals without any sort of business entity attached to them do not get a DUNS number attached to them.
Doing business and registering a company (a separate legal person) are orthogonal concepts that are specific to local legislation. You can do business as a private individual, and various "company" forms in various countries are not actually companies but just VAT/financial registrations for the individual itself and have no legal status of its own. Whether you need to register a company form depends on local rules and may be subject to e.g. volume limits (e.g., okay below 10k USD annual).
The alternative to being s business in s transaction is being a consumer (as in B2C), and you're obviously not a consumer when publishing an app.
