Certificate pinning is a big problem for corporate environments: large companies install CA certificates in their endpoints to allow centralized traffic inspection. Apps that enforce certificate pining cannot operate properly in these networks.
It can be a desired function sometimes (e.g., a bank that wants to protect its customers) but in most situations it comes back at their face (i.e., bank customer wants to manage his bank account from his work office).
About your conclusion, I fully agree with you. It is not about protecting users but about protecting Google. Let's not ignore the other fact that Chrome started hiding some requests from its Network panel (e.g., CORS) for "our own good", which makes network-layer inspection even more necessary.
It can be a desired function sometimes (e.g., a bank that wants to protect its customers) but in most situations it comes back at their face (i.e., bank customer wants to manage his bank account from his work office).
About your conclusion, I fully agree with you. It is not about protecting users but about protecting Google. Let's not ignore the other fact that Chrome started hiding some requests from its Network panel (e.g., CORS) for "our own good", which makes network-layer inspection even more necessary.