Besides, you could make the same argument for something like wearing a helmet while bike riding. I'm sure there are situations where false peace of mind is a problem, but I don't see why we should assume mask wearing would be one of them.
At the time they were obviously operating with limited information, but it's crazy to me that people continue to defend the early pandemic mask messaging. They screwed up, it happens, but it should be acknowledged and there should be a post mortem.
How many people have you seen wearing clear plastic face shields or bandannas tied around their face like Ol' West banditos, with the bottom open? How about with the mask pulled down below their nose? (Disclaimer: I did that the other day; I was at the optometrist and my breath was fogging up the lens thingy.)
The early pandemic mask messaging was wrong. A postmortem might very well find that they made the best recommendations they could based on what they knew.[1] Unless you've already decided that they screwed up because they're lying idiots.
[1] See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138301: "(I note that there was a meeting of epidemiologists in March, 2020, where famously, no one wore masks. How far are you willing to to go to lie?)"
My guess is it was some combination of uncertainty about effectiveness in the general public and wanting masks to be available for healthcare workers, so they ran with the messaging they did. IMO if they didn't want to make a statement that could lead to hoarding in the early days they should have just said nothing about masks until production was ramped up. Masks are such a minimally invasive preventative measure that given uncertainty about their effectiveness you would normally err on the side of encouraging.