So, classic corporate walk-back. Put something out that's horrible, get backlash, walk it back to what you originally wanted to do which is "less horrible", then make people feel good cause they feel like they won while you're still laughing to the bank.
That doesn't add up, in this case. If they simply announced a revenue share, something that Unreal Engine already has, it wouldn't have been anywhere as controversial. Some devs would grumble but it wouldn't have been taken as an existential threat worth jumping ship as soon as possible.
The whole charge per download was likely an attempt to get more money out of freemium mobile games, but nobody was willing to accept that.
Really, the damage to their image so significant, it's likely many dev studios will drop it even under those conditions, just out of lost trust.
I'm telling my computers teacher friends to drop Unity from their courses. There are lots of other options. Just not Roblox, which is even worse than Unity.
If I were in a university course with Unity, I'd be asking my professor some pretty pointed questions about platform visibility and stability, too.
The reputation damage from this change will be lasting.
I think you’re giving them too much credit. These companies are run by people who fundamentally don’t understand their market or customers, and they over reach out of greed and over estimating their worth. We are in a time of companies needing to prove profitability, so here we are.