I see this argument all the time, but isn't this just human nature? In any organized structure, some people are going to seek out "power" and abuse it. You will find people making the same complaint about their neighbor who is the head of the homeowner association. It's also part of why people become cops, or if they can't get there, security guards.
Every broad "type" of community on the internet has had this problem. I remember growing up, there were plenty of capricious IRC moderators and admins as well as moderators of individual forums. Little dictators.
I will say, I feel like there was a concerted effort to frame these API changes as specifically being harmful to those with disabilities and moderators (I guess in an attempt to point to short term, immediate concrete harms that would come from this), which opened things up to reframing the whole discussion around as a referendum on moderation.
And apparently most people can't make a simple connection and ask "Why did Reddit not care about these flagrant power abuses before? Will they keep caring after this is over?"
And it seems like that's been fairly successful. But I still think Reddit has doomed itself with this move.