the long term innovation outlooks are still better, so you benefit long term as well.

It’s just less obvious / measurable that immediate benefits.

And also, short term, isn’t it that other EarPods are getting better, rather than AirPods getting worse?

Medium term, I don’t think that Apple will stop innovating on AirPods just because of the EU market and this one feature not being exclusive to AirPods anymore. But it’s a possibility, I agree.