I am not working for Airbus and not trying to defend their position(s) just listening to them and working with them on some issues dating back from the A310 " Forward Facing "cockpit for those old enough to remember ...so I followed the discussions around the A380 since the beginning.( around 1990) Jean Roeder was the main spokesman at the time .
on the money :
France was pushing ( they always do) and "economic fallback " in the ( very) long them has always been their vision. Making money came second , at the time at least . Their argument was that the Caravelle and the Concorde never made money but they maintained top knowledge and engineering in Toulouse.
on the Boeing issue :
That was definitively a very strong motivator at the time :
1) for Airbus to be offering a complete range of aircraft ,i.e. to be at pair with Boeing .
2) to replace the 747 with modern technology at something like 15-20% lower operating costs (if my memory is correct, do not quote me on the percentage )
back to the thread : Singapore airlines was the launch customer for the A380, so they have the oldest air frames , replacing them by new ones can be seen as support for the aircraft too.