The point is instead of differentiating themselves from the competition, they are lowering themselves to the same level, while at the same time the competition is rising.
Previously people flew QF because they were better - now they are not. They are just the same on many levels, better on some and way worse on others. So many frequent flyers like myself are now spreading the love rather than blindly flying QF.
So instead of me paying QF an extra $60 to get a seat I used to get for free, they will likely lose 10 times that in revenue for that flight as I purchase a VA flexi and use one of my upgrade credits to fly J.
The bean counters at QF seem to continually only be doing one side of the calculations. X trans cons per day times Y seats times $60 = $Z per year extra income, sounds great. They seem to ignore the $1,000's that they lose at the same time from these decisions.