It's arguably a sign that there is need for refinement, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, jeez. Every platforms' early days were much like this. Reddit was pretty shit at first. YouTube was pretty shit at first. And so on.
Nothing comes to life without teething pains. We're literally on day two for most users, it's bizarre to be saying anything about Lemmy's future this early.
The IPO is everything, I'm sure. So much of any valuation is entirely speculative, but the higher that speculation is the more money the stakeholders will be able to get out when they sell.
Presumably spez is a major stakeholder, and if so, a short-term inflation of particular usage metrics would directly mean more dollars in his pocket when they sell. It doesn't matter if it then all falls over in a heap, if the monetisation isn't actually viable; he (and others) have already cashed out, and the folks who bought into the valuation are left holding the bag.
That seemed to be a situation where the head mod was going against the wishes of the other mods. Not sure how I feel about it, personally, but it's not quite as simple as "Spez made the subreddit open against the wishes of everyone involved".