Actually the new United earning system might be attractive to people in Scandinavia who fly SAS. Formerly the disadvantage with United's program if you fly SK:
1) No multipliers like 2X miles in all classes if you are 1K and fly SK. The only multiplier is 25% extra miles if you fly business or Plus.
2) Business travelers did not get much whereas SK offered 100% extra miles for earning and status. With UA you at least get 50% extra status miles (PQM).
On the other hand LH had the same multipliers and bonus points as flying UA metal, so I would normally prefer to fly LH if I had a choice.
But now if you spend $150 one way ARN-CPH in Go then you will earn 150*11= 1650 miles if you are 1K. (It is 8X at the lowest *G level). So you would get 1650 miles on the flight that formerly earned 500 miles, or the gold card holder would get 1200 miles. Not bad!
This only works if you buy the ticket from UA (016 stock). But this is possible; I have been doing it for a while because it is more convenient for intra-nordic flights. Same prices as on the SK website. I think this will work OK for intra-Europe. Unfortunately SK is not part of the transatlantic JV (forget the name) so I don't think you can buy a transatlantic ticket with SK metal on 016 ticket stock.
Consider another example. You pay $500 to fly CPH-FRA one way in Plus. Formerly you earned 625 miles on UA. Now it is 4000 points with a gold card if you buy a 016 ticket. Buy the ticket from SK and it is the old earnings scheme.
United gives 50% bonus status points (PQM) if you fly SK Plus and up. Not as good as with SK but pretty good. You also get this with LH family airlines and ANA, and maybe some others.
I also do not think UA will adjust their earnings. SK's changes are not dramatic except for intra-Nordic where you only get 250 points.
But consider the new system with $. You buy a cheap $50 ticket ARN-CPH. A passenger without status earns 250 miles (5X multiplier), which is inline with SK's own earnings.
The biggest concern is if they cut back on status (PQM) with cheap SK fare classes. But most of their customers are US based where they need spend a certain amount of $ for each status level, so people are not going to get status on very cheap tickets. Note that people with non-US address are exempt from these PQDs.