I think if people weren’t expecting this or something like it then they haven’t been paying attention to Strava and their policy changes for a while.
Last year their syncing rate limits required intervals.icu to restrict syncing to paid members only.
From March 2022 Strava blocking syncing for Apple
May 2020 they moved leaderboards to subscription only, also broke the APIs as part of that.
This change reduced the functionality that many other apps could provide, just like their changes this month did.
They have long term patterns of removing features (also removed HR sensor support on phones), so changes like the one they just made are only surprising to people who have not been paying attention to this kind of stuff.