This sounds more like a merger - AppLoving is offering shares which would be worth 49% of the combined company.
Unity provides the Game Engine, AppLoving provides the ad/payment side - it could work.
Both are terrible for consumers/developers.
Unfortunately they don't get to vote on it.
There's a ton of industry structures I don't like. (I won't list various companies I don't like, b/c that would distract from my core point that they do have healthy economics from customers who do like their products.) Existing market structures are usually the result of some form of consistent action on the part of market participants.
So what would a better industry structure be, for customers, that would consistently make money for developers?
I'd like to be proven wrong on this in the future.
But the play is more consolidation that anything. A large swath of mobile games use Unity, and a large swath of free games monetise using AppLovin. The Venn Diagram of these two is nearly a single circle.
They made an SDK to create installers for Windows that was used by 3rd parties with nefarious means. Said SDK/toolkit has been discontinued for years as well.
Hardly makes them a malware/adware company...