I've just peripherally following this, I've never used unity or anything that uses it. I'm just wondering why they handled this so badly. Was it deliberate, like "take the bandaid off" or were they just out to lunch?

Aren't there pr firms you can hire to help with this, and focus group and whatnot so you don't have to enrage the internet and then issue "clarifications". I'm always amazed when big companies are so bush league. Hire a consultant to help if you're not sure, they've probably lost millions in goodwill over this.

Edit: to clarify, I'm not really talking about the policy change, more the way they announced it, received all kinds of criticism, then "clarified". There may for example be a business reason why they are ok with pissing off some customers, but why not get the messaging right the first time?

I think there's little way around the model itself being very bizarre? Unity asserts they'll be able to reliably track a number of installs that accounts for trolls, multiple downloads, and also carves out exemptions for charity, demos, etc. all while not collecting predatory amounts of information on each install. I'm virtually certain it's a complete fabrication; that their entire model (and, by proxy, the health of entire companies) relies on this claim is deeply worrying.

Unity's model is still WAY kinder than Unreal's for virtually all pay-upfront games, but there are degenerate failure cases, particularly around f2p mobile games, where you're on the hook for catastrophic amounts of money; Unity's seeming unkindness around that (e.g. not implementing a 5% revenue cap, like Unreal) is also concerning, and I'm not really sure why they're not handling this with more care.

CEO-out-of-touch-with-their-customers is a tale as old as time.