The reality is containers and container-first OSs are killing RHEL, you no longer need a breadth of OS packages or a fully capable OS. Just docker or podman. The only place RHEL has a stranglehold is with COTS apps, but those are all moving to containers too. I can't think of any widely used container that uses RHEL/CentOS or Fedora for the base image, that was a huge miss on RH's part.
:shockedpikachuface:
Alpine as a base image is perfectly fine; it is a tiny base system after all.
RH base image is also relatively small (compared to full RHEL system). It is also completely useless, as you cannot dnf install anything while building the image, if you do not have access to RHEL repos. If you have to bring in your own packages, you might use Alpine just as well.
I woould also contest your claim about "happily pay". No, the payment goes after the sales folks do their job, which isn't easy either. There's nothing "happily" about it.
I don't see OpenShift getting the same COTS lift as RHEL, so in my mind it's still going to be a net loss for RH long term as that revenue leaves RHEL and doesn't go to OCP.