I assume it's easier to MITM everything.

Incompetance probably. They didn't realise that it would be that much of a bad thing.

Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

... I wonder if there's an MBA / capitalism version of this, centering around short-term profit at the expense of everything else.

Jumping at short-term profit over the people who trusted you is malice, in my book. Profit-uber-alles is not some thing that appears out of the ether--somebody has to do it.