Maybe cheaper for Stripe, since they are offloading their compute to customers?

I don't really get the draw either - what is the point of having a distributed blockchain if it is controlled by a single entity?

Despite the crypto hype massively dying down there's still a ton of idiots and grifters believing in it in big corps (including banks). Stripe could be targeting that and believes they'd be able to extract more money out of those idiots than what it costs to run this blockchain. This could work as long as they're careful enough not to get high on their own supply.