I was talking with a friend about this the other day and he brought up a good point. If you were about to IPO as a company, this is not a bad decision from a business standpoint (cut costs, bring as many users as possible under your control). Obviously the way they executed the decision could be harmful to them, but based on the pressures they're under, I can't see how you could blame them too much. Which is why the only enduring platform has to be something federated like mastodon or lemmy, since they won't have the same economic/capitalist pressures to make the product worse.

Rich and influential entities should be subject to more accountability, not leniency. I agree that for-profit entities with motives are good reason to be wary of them, but it's no reason to let them evade responsibility for their actions.

Also, no company's success should ever depend on alienating its users and slandering longtime contributors.

> If you were about to IPO as a company, this is not a bad decision from a business standpoint (cut costs, bring as many users as possible under your control).

the parallel for traditional companies is choosing to bust unions, and a month before you IPO is an absolutely terrible time to choose to bust your union unless you're absolutely 100% sure you're immune to a "strike".

in this case it's not just picking a fight with powerful stakeholders (like mods) but also turning off features that a ton of users interact with the platform via, and trying to force everyone off third-party clients onto the new experience and native app. In this model the users are a stakeholder that you're picking a fight with at the same time.

the best time to do it is 20 years ago, but, a month before you IPO is not the right time at all.