The protest should've been to alert people of moving communities and Reddit alternatives from the beginning, despite the moderators having power, the admins are essentially like "bruh we have absolute power, your power is nothing"

This was not and should not've been surprising in the slightest... Anyone shouldve been able to predict this from the moment spez decided to get all shitty about the dev of Apollo, from the moment he stated "were profit driven until profits arrive" and then did the thing that honestly might help make money but not as much as the ideas that would've keeps third part app devs around

Honestly there were red flags from the beginning, mods were just too engrossed in the power they thought they had, and had the idea that no one could take it away from them. As a result they failed to set the true purpose of the protest. They failed to realise their power was an illusion, and that to keep it they either needed to comply or try to take their community and move elsewhere, and use this protest to advertise where to go next.