I think it's closer to an attempted refutation of a strawman.

As one who leans towards belief in free will and also towards compatibilism, and more importantly originates from a culture with a shared belief in free will (conservative Christian evangelicalism), I don't think anyone I've known who believed in it meant "I believe my actions are fundamentally unpredictable."

I think they just meant that they genuinely have an ability to choose between the options they perceive, and then to attempt to enact that choice.