It's a for-profit company. Again, I see no issues with their changes.

People will step up, if the current moderators cannot find ways to deal with it. Their actions were not at all understandable. Just because a job is made harder doesn't mean you say "fuck it all, we're gonna make our own casino with blackjack and hookers."

So you think that a group of people that represent thousands should simply make decisions without consulting the community they represent? This isn't any different from politicians creating laws to make their own lives easier, while basically ignoring the constituents. If they no longer have the time to volunteer due to the changes, others will step up and eventually find ways to become more efficient. This isn't affecting reddit's revenue per the news. The only ones suffering are the masses currently.

I have zero issues with a company increasing the cost to access their IP.

Permanently? Screwing the community that the mods are supposed to represent? Because a company wants to charge for the IP it owns?

I know what a protest is. This is more like a bunch of power-hungry children with no foresight crying about something they don't like with no regard for the masses.

lemmy and its unintuitive, ugly UI is basically a scuffed reddit at home.

The larger problems aren't really lemmy either. Here's a list of larger issues: -Moderators took it upon themselves to make an executive decision without consulting the sub members, which basically IS the community itself. -There was no proper transition plan, which helped contribute to this barren wasteland that you see. Maybe the mods are inexperienced in moving from one thing to another, but a single sticky post is NOT a sufficient form of information let alone an agreed upon plan. -All of our posts, interactions with each other, comments from GGG, etc. are all on reddit. There's history there, and it means something to many of us. Clicking on a shit link to try to browse the past isn't the same thing; it is an absurdly detached form of "legacy."