My understanding was always that kneading/folding/rolling/etc. was done to homogenize the dough mixture to form an even crumb, and to align gluten chains to increase the elasticity of the dough and allow it to retain more of the gasses during the proofing process.
Whatever method you use doesn’t really matter, and the time isn’t as important as the consistency reached. Getting the dough to the point where it can form a stable loaf without being floppy uneven is the goal.
You can OVER knead dough, though doing that by hand is difficult unless your hands are used to doing a lot of work like that. Typically over-kneading happens in kneading machines that are run too long, and the end result is bread with a thick, hard crust and a dense, dry, crumbly crumb.
The short-term is that reddit is scrambling to try to maintain the appearance of normality. Calling for volunteer moderators (Always Were.meme), and talking about their decreased financial stream show this. The rest is gonna be longer term knock-on type effects.
Ultimately though, as many others have said, I’m here and I’m not going back, so while the bad news is a little cathartic, I mostly don’t care. Will they completely die, probably not, but they are dead to me.