The harshness is intentional because Reddit is gearing up to aim themselves at a new audience. They know that they are going to lose a big chunk of their users - they want that. Those of us who were using third party apps were probably the least convertible in terms of profit.
The mentality is our way or the highway, and in this case they win no matter what because for every one of us they lose, they are going to gain 20x. They want those TikTok numbers, and this is how they plan to get there