You’re arguing that a younger audience would never care for what critics have to say, in which case, Pitchfork was doomed to die regardless of the choices they made: if you’re not bringing in a new audience, you’re dying, because of churn.

Perhaps wokeness hastened the loss of the old audience but evolving to meet the changing tastes of your potential audience is important, otherwise, you’re setting a date for your death.

That said, I don’t think it was a cynical attempt to ride a trend but rather evolution in response to the writers and editors evolving in their understanding of music and the world. After all, Pitchfork was always a representation of the tastes of the writers and editors. Of all the people you’d expect to be at the forefront of cultural evolution, writers about culture are up there.