The unfortunate thing is that in a lot of cases, the "Big Stick" approach actually worked. Many reddit moderators that were "leading" the protests caved under threats of replacement from the admins. Maybe it's because they're addicted to the little bit of power being a moderator over a reasonably sized community gives you. Maybe they're just set in their ways and expected reddit to roll back their API changes. I can't say. The one that really pissed me off was r/selfhosted. Like, your entire thing is autonomy and a very technical microcosm of DIY culture, but the second you're faced with the possibility of just migrating to one of a million different other, self-hosted options, suddenly it becomes "too much of an inconvenience?" Totally pathetic.