I disagree.
Early D&D had no roles except healer, blaster and meatshield. The thief was there to deal with enviromental hazards like traps and locks and was usually considered the most disposable 'role' in a party IME.
There was no explicit controller, although either the Mage or Druid could serve as one with the right spells. There was no explicit defender although a Fighter or Cleric could tank if needed. There was no striker at all, although a high level mage was unquestionably the big guns of the game. We called him a blaster.
There was no leader, that term did not exist until 4e invented it as a fig leaf to cover the term "healer".
3e formalized the Fighter, Wizard, cleric and rogue as the iconic 4 classes. That's not the same as roles. They upped sneak attack damage to make the Rogue more attractive which led to his serving as a striker, and led to later "Glass cannon" variants like the Ninja.
There was no such thing as a leader in the 3e lexicon. There was a non-critical job as a buffer. That role could be filled by a Cleric or Bard or possibly a Mage. Later the Artificer.
There was also a Healer. This was a Cleric or druid or maybe a Bard. Later there was the ... Healer.
3e design space was not constrained by roles and was richer for it. Totemists, Binders, Monks, Bards, Druids, Beguilers, Duskblades, Dragon Shamans, Warlocks, Sword Sages.
You could generate some pretty good arguments trying to pidgeonhole those classes into a 4e style role. Does that make them bad classes?
Again, the 4 explicit roles are straightjackets that suit one specific style of play under a specific set of circumstances. Outside of that "Kick-in-the-door" tactical map dungeon crawl they are nothing but a hindrance.
The roles were always there, they just were renamed and evolved.
The meatshield was the guy who hit enemies and took hits from enemies. It evolved into the tank in 3e when actively halting enemies was added. In 4e, its name was changed to defender.
The blaster of older edition just dealt a lot of spell damage. In 3e, it was turned into a lot of any sort of damage and became damage-dealers. 4e turned them into strikers and gave them "escape from threat" abilities.
The healer just healed. It wasn't until 4e where it was combined with the noncritical role of buffer to make the leader role.
Controller was another noncritical role. It evolved into a strong role when control abilities started to match damage in strength.
The noncombat roles was first given to the thief. Then the role was marginalized and the classes that got it was given the other combat roles.
And there was no problem until 3e showed up. Before each class could be tailored into only 1 or 2 roles. Then roles were given to whatever class matched the fluff. The role distribution was changed and players started to question the point of any class that only got one and/or got the one everybody had access to (damage-dealer). So 4e went the other way and enforced roles.
Role were there and always will be. They just evolved and were renamed as the importance of each role moved with the edition.
My own homebrew rpg had its role change when I changed it. Damage dealer and healer were weakened in importanced and I get complaints how fighters are broken and saints stink.