The average user won't think about it as a drastic action at all because they will neither know nor care about the blackouts and subsequent re-openings.
I don’t use Reddit, but I did occasionally read Ask Historian threads when they were linked from other places on the internet:
Good luck trying to find the actual historians that made the subreddit worth visiting (many often mods themselves, I presume) once said mods are demoted and policies are changed.
The AskHistorians mods themselves have said that there's no alternative. One way or another, they will be back. As for the rest of the subs that do not need subject matter experts, like r/funny, their demodding will not matter.
