It is a psychological reaction. The amount of digital surveillance has massively increased in the last couple years. US has just started, as you probably know too, discussing the possibility of adding mandatory age checks to any device connecting to the internet (that might fail due to its infeasibility, but that is another issue). So is this reaction really that surprising? People are afraid that this might be the first of a series of changes that make it more surveillance friendly, such as actual age verification. Indeed incremental changes would probably be the only feasible way one can turn something like systemd surveillance friendly. Even leaving everything aside, this is singularly the worst possible time to suggest such a change to the level that I would almost look for malintent.