"Getting angry b/c of a UX decision designed to help onboard users is what we call gatekeeping. "
That's the thing though. It's not JUST an UX decision. It's an UX decision that also disincentives the one thing that is Mastodon's main selling point that supposedly differentiates it from all the mainstream social networks. It's an UX decision with a severe trade-off, which makes it fair to criticize whether that trade-off is worth it imo.
If that's automatically gatekeeping then instagram users complaining the platform they use is getting increasingly tiktokified might just as well be called gatekeeping, instead of you know, people being worried the platform they use is turning into something else than what they initially signed up for in the first place.