I think any other interpretation is extremely naive.

Could you explain why?

I don't think believing why the most valuable company in the world with the highest and thickest walls around its garden, and a track record of not playing nice with others, is doing this, requires much explanation except that they want to kill the possibility of anyone bypassing the toll gate to the said garden.

Apple could support PWAs and enforce the same Core Technology Fee they do on them as they do for 3p distributed apps, so this argument makes no sense.

Apple has no way of enforcing any kind of platform fee for PWAs since the developer does not need to interact with Apple at all. This financial conflict of interest is why the availablity of the full PWA feature set is desirable to developers and undesirable to Apple.

naive people accept at face value PR speak. unwilling to look past that and look for other ulterior motives even less charitable ones would pretty much be textbook naivety to me.

I didn’t ask because I think someone should take a company’s word at face value.

I asked because the thing this company said in this particular instance aligned with what I’d heard from other (independent) parties and I wanted to know why this person seemed so sure about that being wrong.

Naive people also forget the best lies have some truth woven in.

Because accidentally this move will make more money for Apple. (Follow the money.)