FIFA obviously wants, for financial and marketing reasons, that as many national teams as possible can participate in the World Cup, and the interestingness and quality of the competition is less important to them.
It all comes down to profit in the end, as always.
I think that the fans will always be interested in the matches of their national teams, and that they will start to be interested in the rest of the competition only when the group stage of the competition is over.
It is really a shame that such a great national team, such as Italy, will not participate in the World Cup, but I believe that they will surely participate in the next World Cup, because it will be much more easy to qualify, given the much larger number of participants.
Well, yeah, up to a point.
If the tournament ends up being similar to the UEFA nations league, then no one would bother to watch the games.
It's very different to watch your country in a friendly match or in a world cup qualifier, or at the final of the world cup.
The UEFA nations league is not as competitive for example, so it's not as exciting to watch as the world cup.
I hope they manage to keep the world cup as competitive as it has been.