They must have seen XQC get bought out by a competitor and realized that was likely going to keep happening if they didn’t let the creators have freedom.
Now we see if they lost community trust and walked back too late not to keep bleeding from this.
I used it in beta a little bit, reverted over minor issues that needed ironing out. Then there’s my buddy, who spent hours trying to figure out what the hell was causing it to crash. He eventually figured it out though. For any poor soul who finds this comment looking for answers, sudo pacman -Rns xdg-desktop-portal-gtk fixed it for him.
If I had to guess, they’re probably not doing it just because they want to. It’s entirely possible they got a threat letter from one or more publications about the topic and are doing it to avoid litigation. Or they’re afraid that they could face litigation if they don’t take action.
We shouldn’t assume ill intent unless there’s something to substantiate it.