These are not commercial organisatons, they are instruments of state power. Genuinely, no offence but there is no commercial business case for Etihad and Emirates to both be serving that region, similarly, Qatar and Etihad exist to raise the profile of Abu Dhani and Qatar on the world stage, they're old style flag carriers.
Emirates less so, more comercial but still knee deep in politics.
State aid comes in many forms. Those who look down their noses at the MEB3 sometimes forget that Government handouts and restrictive bilaterals and pricing rules are what most of the European legacies first grew dominant on. Similarly the USB3 are only still here today because of US Government bankruptcy protection laws over the years and post-WW2 gifted traffic rights - eg. between Japan and the rest of Asia
So lets be careful when talking down the relative "johnny come lately's", they're only trying to play catch up. Sure I don't agree with a lot of their home politics either, but let's face it if it wasn't for the MEB3 we'd all be doomed to the higher fares and generally poorer service of the legacy club.