I don’t think it was unintended in the sense that the admins didn’t expect these consequences. At least to me, on their posts they seem very aware that what they’re doing is very damaging, but they were stuck with choosing between the lesser of two evils, and they choose what was going to keep them more sane for now.

I’m sorry but this is the wrong attitude. His concerns are legitimate, even if somewhat poorly expressed, and they are just some among many. If Lemmy and the fediverse at large wants to grow and see wider adoption, there needs to be a way to tackle these issues, or be more transparent as to why they won’t be tackled in the near future, or never.

For what it’s worth, I am going to stick around despite the issues, because I see there’s a drive to improve and so I expect Lemmy and other fediverse platforms to get better with time, while I expect reddit to keep getting more and more worse with time, and I’m done taking that abuse.