As I said the subreddit is shaped by them so if you don’t like the subreddit the blame lies only with the moderators. As far as I can see there were several problems. One was that they were arbitrary in their decisions. There were rules but they didn’t matter. If they liked you then you could violate any rule, if they didn’t like you they banned you. Another problem was that they used alts to participate in the subreddit and again if you got into an argument with one of them you had no idea you were arguing with a moderator and consequences could be severe. Finally some of the moderators were downright bad people. They harassed people, threatened people, online stalked people, doxxed people etc.

All of that sounds like it would be resolved by a lighter moderation approach with fewer rules. Additionally, it's way easier to fork a lemmy community when things get weird. People can tell when community leaders are bad. "Hospitality Club" and "NZ Mushroom Growing" are two that jump to mind where the ego of the leaders makes the communities difficult to participate in the community. People leave when they figure it out.