The thing that makes ist questionable is the dishonesty. It's not like Meta has been building their empire on open ecosystems. If this was something that was dear to them on principle, there are plenty of things that they could have done differently with FB, Insta or WA (to this day).

So why the change of heart? Well, it's not. They are simply not able to compete anywhere on the Pareto frontier. So they give their relatively bad stuff away and play the high and mighty game, because that's all they can do to get returns.

Not a great look – and I would expect that to last about as long as they can't actually monetize their stuff more effectively.