I’m speaking as a human looking at the historical context of eating animals. Predators taste terrible because they are high effort, low reward in terms of nutritional value.

I am absolutely not advocating that we start eating pets. I would feel terrible about it too. And if I have an option, besides starving to death, I would take it.

The other reason why predators have become pets is because they had a strong additive value in terms of hunting or protection. Dogs in term protection, and hunting and cats in terms of pest control. Groups with these kind of pets tended to fair better.