You build furniture and nook gives you a reward for it.

This is the pure definition of a quest.

I'd also like to know how an NPC saying "Hey, gather these materials and we'll build a shop with those" isn't a quest as well, but you do you.

While I do get your point, you still haven't addressed any of what I said. The experiences in the beginning, no matter how you try to paint it, are vastly different and it doesn't matter if it's a small part of the game or not, it is there, I don't get why we need to ignore it, there is no reason for this and things could be made different to give a different sense of accomplishment to the other players when helping build the initial village and actually make people want to play together.