I think the majority of users didn’t care that much about it.

The reverse happened: users were complaining about powerful mods who banned stuff all the time.

When you replace the mod that cared about the subject and knew the subject well with a corporate stooge the quality goes down. They allow posts that are off topic, they ban prolific on topic commenters.

The sub gets fewer votes as the quality goes down

News subs lose their political flavour and so the members all find it unsuitable and leave, and they have to rebuild the sub with members that match the politics of the new guy