This decision is against the WordPress ecosystem, and it's not acceptable.

Looking at the stats plugin authors can understand if their plugin is having issues.
Many times the users don't open any tickets on the support forum, but the installation growth goes down.
When you see those numbers going down more than usual most of the time it usually means your plugin is having a problem that you should detect and solve.
The only advantage that I see in removing those numbers is making money with other services that sell that information. That information still exists, it's only not displayed anymore. Those who will give that information will do it for their own interests.
Or, another possible reason is that those who have access to that information will use it to have an advantage over other plugin authors. For example Automattic?

Sorry, this doesn't look open source. This looks more like a kind of mafia act.
Removing that information is not acceptable. Please, restore it.