Note that they're actually doing more work now (checking for contractual entitlements, playing whack-a-mole with rebuilders, trying to reassure ecosystem partners, etc etc) than they did before.
I'm not sure that's true at all. Having done a bit of packaging myself, I'm well aware that it's hard, tedious, frustrating work. Doing it twice, once for their own users and again for the benefit of those whose only practical effect is to fragment the ecosystem, is a substantial burden.
> playing whack-a-mole with rebuilders
Are they playing whack-a-mole?
Or was this one change that people are arguing (and Red Hat's lawyers seem to think) is within their rights under the GPL ?
It will be whack-a-mole if Red Hat tries to stop supporting VPS instances or stop updating UBI, both of a 1% chance of going away.