The counter argument is that standardized open protocols are important. So if a big corporation moves to adopt a standardized open protocol, it's a good thing for everyone, even if said corporation is sketchy, evil, or whatever.
It's kind of like Microsoft's adoption of XML for Office save files. Yes, they had ulterior motives, and the result isn't completely satisfactory for third parties who want to parse the save data. But it's still miles better than the previous situation where things were completely closed off.
I feel like we've passed the peak of LOTR as a media phenomenon. As the Hobbit movies and The Rings of Power show, all the stuff surrounding LOTR isn't as interesting as LOTR itself, and there's only so many times you can retread the material from those three books. And the Tolkien estate seems to oppose expanding the universe beyond what Tolkien wrote (thank goodness).