It's very carefully being shoved in by touching the waters and seeing how far they can go. The first few times there is outrage but after a while people get tired, miss that it is happening or simply don't understand what it's about. The changes aren't that big but as a whole work towards something nobody wants. Same as with a lot of laws and / or social changes.
A lot of people are really good at justifying the problems by completely missing the point as well. i.e people going “Oh you can just disable/hide/remove xyz” when the issue is that xyz shouldn’t be there at all or be opt in, rather than opt out.
Then there’s the people that listen to these justifications without a second thought or even parroting them, giving them extra legitimacy to other people that come across these takes.
Do they? Sure, people riot all the time with very good reason. But usually it’s like, they don’t have access to food, or they’re being forced to work longer because the retirement age is increased, or maybe because they’re being evicted from their homes. Certainly these issues are not in any way comparable to a software feature that some people dislike.
Why is there not more ire, anger, and vitriol online?
As a more general answer, the web has been neutered with overmoderation and safe space mentality. Ire, anger, vitriol, which are all normal and valid emotions, systematically get hidden away.
Bringing it back to $NEWS_TOPIC, why are people using a software whose changes can bring them to ire, anger and vitriol? It sounds similar to growing angry with an abusive lover. "Why does he hit me?".
I rioted once when I stubbed my toe. It was on a new Ikea bed which was a pain to put together, and the fact that it continued to cause me pain just set me over the edge. I went right down to the harbour and threw everything into the water, because let Posidon deal with it, only the bed got me back because I picked the wrong crates, I chucked my tea into the water instead. I was sad. It was 1772