I think you're over-estimating how much Hackaday is worth. Maker Media went defunct in the last two years, and Hackaday hasn't capitalized on that audience, at all. I believe the viewership has even gone down over that time. Thanks to the pandemic, we're seeing a lot of new and exciting projects, and Hackaday hasn't capitalized on that at all. Add into that hackster.io coming up in the last few years (as well as others), and there are so many lost opportunities that have passed by Hackaday.

I think you should rethink, "if this is heartbreaking for anyone who loves Hackaday". You don't love hackaday. You _loved_ hackaday. It was cool for a decade or so but the entire model of media of curated, edited content is obsolete and has been since the days of Digg, and especially now with other aggregators like reddit and HN.

If it dies, it dies. Don't make it a zombie.