My first inclination is to think this is a good thing. That it's a sign of a better customer experience. It's the cynic in me that worries this will be seen by some as an opportunity to increase RPU and screw up the site. (And the new UI supports that cynical take, at least somewhat.)

I 'grew up' in the era of USENET, which had a couple benefits over the forums and then social media sites that sprang up to replace it. It wasn't perfect, but it did offer more individual control over user experience and less dependency on a single corporate entity. It would be nice to find a way to get back to some of that.