Yeah, and I'm on your team on the important topic.

My perspective on the systemd change is that in open source software it is impossible for any project to force me to do anything that I don't want to do. If the field ever becomes non-optional then I'll use a different init system.

To me, this is just engineers making engineering decisions in a way that is the least impactful for people not participating in the age verification nonsense.

Seeing people actively targeting the humans behind the update is the part that has motivated me to speak out. I don't think your position is wrong in any way, just some of the people sharing that perspective were being actively toxic and harmful.