I'm not sure how they are actually anticipating this not to go negatively. If they are pushing active moderators and replacing them, that seems like a PR nightmare waiting to happen on top of all of this.
So done with reddit I finally took the time to figure out how federated platforms work. Just started on kbin, and I've been seeing a lot more of what I actually want to see.
The people who care have left. The people who don't care stayed and they obviously won't give a shit. The only way they're going to give a fuss is when the content torpedoes, which it looks like it's already started.