No - because most users also don't check install size on games, and unlike renting overpriced storage from a cloud provider, users paid a fixed price for storage up front and aren't getting price gouged nearly as badly. So it's a trade that makes sense.

Both entrants in the market are telling you that "install size isn't that important".

If you asked the player base of this game whether they'd prefer a smaller size, or more content - the vast majority would vote content.

If anything, I'd wager this decision was still driven by internal goals for the company, because producing a 154gb artifact and storing it for things like CI/CD are still quite expensive if you have a decent number of builds/engineers. Both in time and money.