Having them be "in order of preference" was always the intention,[0] but over time the other two got de-emphasized by the plastic industry. Reduce and reuse don't make anyone money (except savings for the consumer), but leaked internal industry studies showed that recycling gives people permission to consume more plastic.[1]
Surprisingly, the earliest media I remember calling this out was a chapter from Michael Moore's book Stupid White Men, which came out in _2001_. He provocatively said that in order to be a better environmentalist, he had stopped recycling (gasp!). This strikes me as being quite impressively far ahead of the curve on this issue...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_hierarchy
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/15/recycling-pl...