Here's my take on it, though it certainly isn't what EK may be up to.

If you fly mainly in Economy, Gold provides you benefits that should keep you flying. Lounge access, excess luggage, priority this and that, upgrades if you're lucky. And you're flying an airline that is competitive on price and offers great service. Most people would rather fly EK than AA even without all this tier business.

If you fly primarily in Business class, that Gold card is pretty useless. But most business travellers pick airlines based on schedule and convenience. Except in markets with strong competition, a lot of these high yield pax are picking EK because of flexibility and to some extent a good product.

In either case, if you're based in DXB and fly frequently enough, EK is likely to be your first choice if price is not under consideration.

So as I see it, there's really no need from a revenue perspective to introduce this tier. However, that being said, the additional cost of servicing a new tier, after the start up cost, should be fairly low if they're just giving more guests to the lounge, more baggage, Flounge and such. And that will surely encourage some people to fly more on EK.