Your post remined me of this twitter thread from one of mozzilla's developers:

https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871240432660480

Downthread:

""" And every time, they’d say, “oops. That was accidental. We’ll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks.” """

No tinfoil required. When in doubt about such issues think about whether or not the "bug" or "error" that people found in Google's solutions benefits Google. If it does, then it's much more likely than not that the "bug" was intentional.

At best they wanted to test user reaction, or at worst, they were hoping it wouldn't be discovered (see Wi-Fi scanning, Safari cookies block bypass, tracking Android users' location at all time, even when "disabled", etc).

Don't attribute to stupidity what can easily be explained by profit incentives (did I just invent a new saying/law?!).

Not unreasonable, but then they would probably A/B test it rather than just break it for everyone. Although I guess they might be A/B testing and I’m just in the same group as OP.

I don't think it's an unreasonable thing to ponder.