I do think that's just standard practice these days with "bad press" moves, but I don't think this is what Unity wanted. They never expected to have to move it as far back as they have, nor did they expect the loss in trust, which was really stupid of them, frankly. They really thought their dominance in the industry was enough that clients essentially wouldn't have a choice other than the shit options dictated by Unity and only Unity.
But not only was that dominance proven extremely fragile (and now heavily fractured), they just put themselves in the very precarious position of having to entice back clients after essentially hitting them in the face and daring them to go somewhere else. Any smart person/company isn't going to willingly leave themselves reliant on Unity ever again.
I guarantee their original goal didn't include "and now only stupid clients will work with us", which is my point.