Who cares if it hardforks to improve privacy? It's FOSS. Fork it if you don't like the direction or if you think it is co-opted. No one forces you to use it. (Which is exactly what would happen if the community saw it going in a bad direction. Just like it forked from Bitmonero)

No one is forcing you to use the most upgraded version of Monero. You can use older versions any time you want. If most users voluntarily upgrade because they value the improvements, they don't owe you compatibility. Free market is choosing it.

It's like me getting mad that people don't carry CDs anymore and want to enforce the economy to forever be compatible at their expense.

Meanwhile Bitcoin privacy and fungibility remain in the stone age with rube goldberg L2s because "muh no hardforks"