I agree it’s anti-consumer in some significant ways. I think of it as not competing as vigorously as you could on price, by publicizing that for the consumers who are willing to do extra work, that you’ll eventually honor the best price they found at a qualifying competitor, but that you’re not going to be the one who initiates the first salvo in the price war.

It's competing as much as you need to to make the sale, not competing as much as you can.

You’re gonna have a bad time in business if you think the objective is to lower the price as much as possible without regard for what the market is paying.

Indeed if I thought that, which I see no evidence to suggest that I do.

I don't think this argument refutes the previous point (which I found surprising, but I think is a good one). Normally, if a competitor lowers prices to undercut me, they will sell more widgets because people will switch to them. But with price matching, they know they won't sell more widgets (because people won't switch), so they keep their price high, which enables me to do so as well.

This is of course a very stylized/idealized argument, but I think it's a good point to consider.