Personally, as a customer, not a developer, this is disappointing to me, as there’s still no reason for me to shop on Epic when they don’t support my operating system, so this is likely just going to entice more developers to make me wait 6 months to play their games. Nonetheless, it’s gaming news.
I would guess they were assuming the failure is that it’s not attracting customers. Nothing wrong with operating at a loss, but you need something to show for it (en excelent product, a healthily growing userbase) – it’s hard to imagine EGS ticking any box with the exclusivity deals they’ve been getting. Personally I can’t recall a single exclusive that they have, other than Fortnite and Ubisoft (which seems to have ended).
Going by their annual reports, the total revenue from third-party sales increased every year. That being the case even past the decrease in exclusive offers may suggest that their winding down strategy is working.