I don’t think users are powerless. All these shenanigans are hurting Reddit, otherwise they wouldn’t be trying so hard to shut it down.
I think it might feel like that because Reddit made a sadly rare good decision in deciding to stay quiet and out of the press, as it casts doubt on how effective dissent is.
But it’s clear from the continued pressure on mods and the fairly drastic action to arrest the nsfw trend that the fallout is way worse than they anticipated and they’re just doing damage control.
They can stay out of the press, but they have to keep acting if they want to salvage anything of their site and those actions will be of a strike-breaking nature likely to generate press on their own.
Consumers are never powerless, if a company does something shitty you don't like with their product stop using the product. Companies are always tied to profitability, they will always try to maximize profits and milk it's users as far as they can without losing them. If consumers fought back with their dollars by not consuming, then companies would stop. If 60% of reddit stayed blackout untill the change was cancelled, spez would have to give in. That's why there is so much effort to fragment everyone, it's the only to stop the majority from realizing the power they hold.